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Stories of 




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AUNT CHARLOTTE'S STORIES 



American History. 



BY l^-^ 

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE 

AND 

H. HASTINGS WELD, D. D 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 




NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

I, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. ^ 






COPYRIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 



1499 



CHAPTER 

I. — The Natives of America 

II.— The Beginning of Discovery. 968-1430 . 

III. — Columbus. 1492-1506 

IV.— The Adventures of Alonzo de Ojeda. 

V. — Princess Anacaona 

VI.— The Curse of America. 1510 

VII.— The First Sight of the Pacific. 1513 

VIII. — The Way into the Pacific. 1520 

IX. — The Aztec Empire. 1513 

X. — The Conquest of Mexico. 1521 . 

XI. — The Conversion of Mexico. 1529 

XII.— The Incas of Peru. 1524 . 

XIII. — The Conquest of Peru. 1532 . 

XIV. — The Civil War in Peru. 1535 . 

XV.— Protection for the Indians, i 542-1 566 

XVI. — English North American Discoveries. 

XVII. — Discoveries on the Eastern Coast, i 536-1634 . 125 

XVIII. — English Sailors on the Spanish Main, i 584-1 596 131 



PAGE 

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16 

• 23 
37 

. ^ 44 
50 

. 55 
63 

. 69 
74 

. 83 
89 

. 94 
102 

. no 
1 524-1 580 117 



Contents. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX.— The First Northern Colonies. 1604-1618 . 138 

XX.— The Pilgrim Fathers. 1620-1637 . . 149 

XXI. — Missionaries in North America. 1626-1655 . 158 

XXII.— The Spread of French Power. 1635-1675 . 168 

XXIIL— Indian Wars. 1675-1704 . . . .179 

XXIV.— The English Conquest of Canada. 1732-1762 193 
XXV.— Expulsion of the Jesuits from South America. 

1750-1773 . . . . . .208 

XXVI. — The Thirteen Colonies. 1762-1766 . . 215 

XXVII.— The American Revolution. 1765-1776 . . 226 

XXVIII.— The War of Independence. 1776-1778 . 245 

XXIX. — The War of Independence. 1779-1781 . . 255 

XXX. — The American Republic, i 782-1 794 . . 268 

XXXI.— The Revolution in Haiti. 1791-1803 . . 281 

XXXII.— Spanish America. 1806-1808 . . .290 

XXXIII.— The Revolt in Spanish America. 1807-1813 . 297 

XXXIV.— The Lake War. 1812-1814 . . .303 

XXXV.— Independence of La Plata and Venezuela. 

1812-1820 . . . . . .316 

XXXVI.— Insurrection in Mexico. 1812-1820 . . 322 

XXXVII.— The Independence of Mexico. 1820-1853 . 329 

XXXVIII.— The Emperor Maximilian. 1858-1882 . 337 

XXXIX.— Independence of Chili, Peru, and Brazil. 

1817-1882 . . . • . 343 

XL.— The Emancipation of Negroes in the English 

Isles. 1772-1838 . . . . .350 

XLL— Boundary Questions. 1838-1848 . . 360 

XLII. — Development of the Republics . . -37° 



Contents. 



CHAPTER 

XLIII. — Argentine Confederation. War with Paraguay. 

1835-1870 

XLIV. — North and South. 1848-1859. 
XLV.— Secession, i 860-1 861 . . 

XLVI.— The War of Secession. 1861-1862 . 
XLVIL— The War of Secession. 1863-1864 
XLVIII. — Defeat of the South, i 864-1 865 
XLIX.— Conclusion ...... 



376 
384 

397 
404 

414 
424 
435 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Indian Mounds ...... 

Scenes in Indian Life ..... 

Indian Wigwam ...... 

Fleet of Columbus sailing from Palos . 
Reception of Columbus by Ferdinand and Isabella 
Balboa's First Sight of the Pacific 
Aztec Warrior and Woman 
Spaniards destroying an Aztec Idol 
The Meeting of Cortes and Montezuma 
Cortes destroying the Idols at Zempoalla 
Pizarro and his Men .... 

Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake 

Pocahontas saving Captain Smith 

Marriage of Pocahontas .... 

Henry Hudson ascending the Hudson River 
Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers . 
Pilgrims marching to Meeting . 
Dutch Costumes and Buildings, 1620-1625 



PAGE 
10 
12 

13 
26 

30 
60 

71 
76 
78 



123 
141 

143 
146 
150 

153 

172 



List of Illustrations, 



Penn treating with the Indians 
Puritans attacking an Indian Fort 
Block-House, for defense against Indians 
Governor Oglethorpe and the Indians . 
Washington's Birthplace 
Washington's Rescue from the Ice 



PAGE 
177 

187 
194 
199 
200 



General Wolfe's Army ascending the Heights of Abraham 205 
Scenes in Albany ...... 221 

Patrick Henry before the Virginia Assembly . . 227 

Throwing over the Tea in Boston Harbor . . 231 

The Skirmish at Concord . . . • .235 

Throwing up Intrenchments on Breed's Hill . . 236 

Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence in 

Committee ....... 240 

Franklin pleading the Cause of America before the 

French King ...... 244 

Washington's Retreat through New Jersey . . 247 

General Marion and his Men .... 258 

The Army in Winter Quarters .... 262 

Surrender at Yorktown ..... 267 

Inauguration of Washington as President of the United 

States ....... 

Pioneer Life in Kentucky . . . . 

Mount Vernon ....... 

First Steamboat on the Hudson 

Perry leaving his Flag-Ship at the Battle of Lake Erie 

Fall of Tecumseh ...... 

Battle of New Orleans . . , . 



275 
277 
303 
305 
309 
• 310 
314 



List of Illustrations. 



PAGE 

Scene in Mexico . . . . . . .328 

Negro Slaves harvesting Sugar-Cane . . -353 

Bombardment of Vera Cruz ..... 366 

Gold-Digging in California. .... 368 

Scene on the Road-Side in Brazil . . . .371 

A Cotton Plantation . ..... 385 

Salt Lake City . . . . . . .392 

Attack on Fort Sumter . . . . " , 401 

General Jackson at the Head of his Brigade . . 405 

Scene at the Battle of Antietam . . . 409 

Monitor attacking the Merrimac .... 416 

Repulsing a Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg . 418 
Admiral Farragut in the Maintop .... 428 

The Centennial Exhibition Building . . . 439 




STORIES OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 



CHAP. I.— THE NATIVES OF AMERICA. 

LL the time that Palestme was being taught 
by the messengers of Heaven, that Greece was 
finding out all that the mind of man could accomplish, 
and Rome was conquering all the lands she knew of; 
yes, and long after the True Light had been known 
in Palestine, and had shone over the world, and the 
Roman Empire had been broken up into the kingdoms 
of Europe, no one in these historic nations knew any- 
thing of the lands that lay on the other side of the 
world. 

Indeed, the world was at first thought to be a flat 
circle, where nothing but clouds and mist lay beyond 
the Atlantic Ocean, though the Greeks had some 
notions, taken perhaps from Phoenician sailors, that 
there was a great country in the far West, which they 



lO 



Stories of American History. 

called Atlantis. The Carthaginians were also said to 
have found a great island which lay beyond the western 
seas. This island figures, in tradition, down to the 
time of Columbus as Antilla ; and it was this that 
it was supposed Columbus had rediscovered. But 
while the use of the compass was not known, it was 
impossible to sail far out of sight of land ; and what- 
ever may have been learned by one generation was 
soon forgotten by another. Even when it came to be 

believed that the 
world was a globe, 
it was supposed 
that the Atlantic 
Ocean reached all 
round from Ire- 
land and Spain to 
India, with only a 
few scattered isl- 
ands in it ; and 
these islands, some 
people said, were 
the tops of the 
mountains in the 
old continent of 
Atlantis, which had sunk beneath the sea. 

Nevertheless there was not only a great continent, 




The Natives of America, ii 

but it was full of inhabitants, as we know from the 
remains they have left. Along the banks of the rivers 
Mississippi and Ohio are curious mounds, containing 
rude pottery, stone arrow-heads, and tools. These 
must be very ancient, for the trees which stand upon 
the tops of the mounds are the growth of centuries. 
In Central America there are wonderful remains of 
large buildings of which the history is not known. 
In the Territory now called New Mexico, belonging to 
the United States, there are remains of walled and 
fortified villages on the hills, with no gateways. The 
only entrance is by flights of stone steps on the 
outside. 

There was a great empire in the south of the 
Northern Continent, in Mexico, the dominant tribe in 
which was the Aztecs ; and another of like dense 
population and advanced organization in Peru. But 
the main body of the two American continents, when 
first they became known to Europeans, was inhabited 
by large tribes of men, living a wild and roving life. 
They had copper-colored skins, high cheek - bones, 
small eyes, and straight black hair. The Northern 
Continent had t;wo leading tribes — the Iroquois, or Six 
Nations, and the Algonquins. There were, besides, an 
immense number of smaller families or tribes, who 
spoke languages that were constantly becoming more 



12 



Stories of American History. 



different from each other, as they dropped old words 
and formed new, and generally very long ones. 




Scenes in hidian Life. 

Mostly they lived by 
hunting. The men, as 
" braves," thought nothing 
manly but war and the 
chase. They would show great patience in bearing 



The Natives of America. 



^3 



pain without a murmur. Their great glory was to 
bring home the scalps of their enemies. If they made 
a prisoner, they put him to the worst tortures they 
could devise ; and he would think his honor saved 
if he could bear all, 
even to death, with- 
out a sigh or a groan. 
The wives, or 
" squaws," had to do 
all the work — dig- 
ging the ground to 
grow maize, beans, 
pumpkins, tobacco, 
and sunflowers for 
the sake of the oil. 
To the squaws fell 
the preparing of the 
skins, of which gar- 
ments were made ; 
carrying burdens, and 
setting up the houses 
whenever the tribe 
moved ; removal tak- 
ing place whenever game became scarce or the re- 
sources of a region were exhausted. Their houses, 
called "wigwams" (an English adaptation of two 




Indian Wisrtuam. 



14 Stories of America7i History. 

or three similar Indian words), consisted, in many 
tribes, of large sheets of bark fastened upon stakes. 
Indeed, birch -bark was one of their most valuable 
materials. Of it they made canoes, snow-shoes, and 
baskets, and also cases in which their infants were 
packed up and suspended either from the mother's 
back or from the branch of a tree. 

The tribes had chiefs, and matters of peace or war 
were conducted by councils with great ceremony and 
deliberation. Some tribes were much more warlike 
than others ; some lived entirely by hunting, some 
cultivated the ground more than others, some fished ; 
but in general character and appearance they were all 
much alike. They had very little religion, but there 
was a common belief in a Great Spirit ; and in every 
tribe there was at least one medicine - man, who 
dressed himself up strangely, and used wonderful 
incantations to discover what was to be done at any 
difficult moment. Some of the South American natives 
lived in strange abodes, raised on stages high among 
the branches of the mangrove-trees that fringe the 
coast. These were a very gentle and amiable people, 
with much less endurance and activity than their 
northern brethren. In a region where fruits are so 
abundant by Nature, they made no attempt at culti- 
vating the soil. 



The Natives of A ^nerica. 1 5 

In the far South were the Patagonians, a rougher 
and a duller race, men of very large stature, and very 
wild and savage in their ways. Whence these races 
came, and how they settled in the great Western Con- 
tinent, no one knows. Some may have come by the 
North, where the Eastern and Western Continents 
nearly meet. Others may have made their way by the 
chain of islands in the Pacific. Or there may be some 
truth in the story of the lost continent of Atlantis; 
and there may have been traffic with Europe before 
the date of history. At any rate, many of these 
people, in especial the Aztecs, had a tradition that 
teachers and conquerors should come from the East. 




CHAP. II.— THE BEGINNING OF 
DISCOVERY. 

968—1430. 

LL who have read the history of England re- 
member how the Northmen and Danes used to 
trouble our coasts. These people were great sailors. 
They settled in Iceland, and, going on farther to the 
West, they came, somewhere before the year 900, to a 
country which they first saw in the summer, when 
there was plenty of grass. It was named Greenland 
by one Eric the Red, who hoped to persuade people 
to follow him thither when he settled there. They set 
up their homes, in spite of the cold and fogs, to which 
they were well used in Iceland and Norway. In the 
year 986, a young man named Biorn, whose father 
had settled in Greenland, sailed to follow him, but lost 
his way, and found himself on the coast of a country 
of small hills, covered with wood. He knew that 
Greenland was mountainous, and had no wood at all ; 



The Beginning of Discovery, i 7 

so he did not stay there, but in about a week's time 
set sail for his father's settlement in Greenland. Some 
time later, about the year 1000, the son of Eric the Red, 
Lief the Lucky, set out from Greenland, with thirty- 
five men, among whom was a German, to find the 
country that Biorn had described. Going to the 
southwest, they saw first some great icy mountains, 
with a plain covered with flat slaty stones, between 
the mountains and the sea. Not liking this, they 
coasted along till they saw a level and wooded country ; 
and still further on, after two days, they found a place 
where a river, which came through a lake, fell into the 
sea. They determined to winter there, cut down trees, 
and build themselves log huts. One day the German 
was lost. They went out to look for him, and met 
him, rolling his eyes, and talking to himself in his own 
language, which they could not understand. At last, 
however, he came to himself, and they found he was 
almost wild with joy, having been reminded of his 
own land by coming upon a spot full of vines bearing 
clusters of grapes. They called the place Vineland, 
or Vinland, and loaded their ships with the timber, 
so scarce in Iceland and Greenland, where no trees 
grew. 

Two years later. Lief s brother, Thorwald, came in 
search of more wood, and the place pleased him so 



1 8 Stories of American' History. 

well, he said he should hke to stay there. He returned 
the next year; but this time the party saw three 
mounds on the beach, and, going up to them, found 
that what had been taken for mounds were three 
canoes, with three natives hidden under each. Like 
fierce Northmen, as they were, they killed eight of 
them. One escaped in his canoe, and brought, on a 
night soon after, the whole tribe against the Northmen. 
A fleet of the savages attacked the ship on which the 
Northmen were, and poured upon them a shower of 
arrows. The natives were repulsed, but Thorwald was 
mortally wounded. At his dying request, he was 
buried on the spot he had liked so well, and the next 
year the party returned to Greenland. Thorstein, his 
brother, sailed from Greenland, with his wife Gudrida, 
and his whole family, with the intention of bringing 
home the body of Thorwald. But Thorstein did not 
even reach Vineland. Driven by a storm upon an 
uninhabited shore of Greenland, he was compelled to 
winter there. Want and fatigue proved fatal to him, 
and to several of his crew. In the spring, Gudrida 
returned home with the dead body of her husband. 

However, the accounts of Vineland induced a large 
party of Icelanders to try to make a home there. 
Thorfinn Karlsefne, a wealthy Icelander, married 
Gudrida, and set sail with her for Vineland. The 



The Beginning of Discovery. 19 

expedition was embarked in three ships, carrying one 
hundred and sixty men (some with wives), and was 
furnished with tools, furniture, and cattle. They settled 
at a place which they called Hop. Vineland is con- 
sidered by antiquaries to have been in or near the 
limits of the present State of Rhode Island ; and the 
Hop of Thorfinn is claimed to be the present Mount 
Hope. The Indian name of the eminence was Mon- 
taup, and it can only be connected with the Hop of 
Thorfinn by supposing that both Northmen and the 
later English settlers, with an interval of centuries be- 
tween them, adapted the native name. The spot was 
fruitful in native products, and answered generously to 
cultivation. Here the Northmen built log houses, 
and let their cattle feed upon the grass. The natives 
came about them, and brought gray furs to exchange 
for cloth and milk-soup. But they were dreadfully 
frightened at the first hearing of the lowing of the 
cattle, and all ran off. After a while they took courage, 
and ventured upon another attack, such as they had 
made upon Thorwald. They were beaten off, chiefly 
by the courage and readiness of Gudrida. The North- 
men remained two years at Hop. Gudrida had there 
a son born — the first white child born in the Western 
Hemisphere — whom she named Snorro. The repeated 
attacks of the natives tired the Northmen out, and 



20 Stories of American History. 

they returned home, enriched with the valuable furs 
and woods which they had obtained. Though the 
precise point where Thorfinn landed can not be posi- 
tively determined, there can be no doubt of the general 
truth of the story. Snorro, born in Vineland, became 
the head of an illustrious race of Icelandic chiefs, and 
to his grandson, Bishop Thorlak Runolfson, we are 
probably indebted for the preservation of what we 
know about these early voyages. Gudrida, after her 
return from Vineland, lived with Thorfinn in princely 
state. After her husband's death, she made a pilgrim- 
age to Rome, and returned to pass the evening of her 
eventful life in a religious retreat which her western- 
born son, Snorro, had founded. 

In the year 1167, when Owen Gwynned, King of 
North Wales, died, there was a dispute among his chil- 
dren who was to succeed him. One of his sons, named 
Madoc, sailed away to the West with his followers, and 
after some years came back, declaring that he had found 
a beautiful mountainous country across the sea. Invit- 
ing men to follow him, he embarked with a large party. 
No more was heard of him. Indeed, after the North- 
men gave up their long voyages, no one knew or cared 
much about the Atlantic, or what might be beyond it. 
In the time of that awful sickness, the Black Death, 
all the Danish seamen died who knew how to reach 



The Beginning of Discovery. 2 1 

the coast of West Greenland. The settlement there, 
said to have been large enough for a bishop and several 
churches, was thought to have perished. But recent 
discoverers think that the West of Greenland never 
was settled. 

The romance of adventure places Robert Macham, 
an Englishman who lived in the time of Edward III, 
among the first of what may be called modern dis- 
coverers, though his claim rests upon accident, not 
intention. He ran away with a young lady of noble 
birth, named Anne Dorset. They sailed from Bristol, 
meaning to go to France ; but a great storm arose, 
and their vessel was driven before it — Anne in utter 
dismay at the punishment that had followed her sin. 
At last they came to a lovely island, full of fine trees 
and beautiful scenery. They landed, to refresh them- 
selves ; and, another storm coming on, the ship broke 
from her moorings, and was driven out to sea again. 
The poor lady, in horror and grief, died three days 
later, and Macham five days after, broken-hearted. 
The crew buried them under a great cross, with an 
inscription, begging any good Christian who should 
find the spot to build a church over their remains. 

The crew left the island in the ship's boat, were cast 
upon the coast of Africa, and were made galley-slaves 
in Morocco. There they met with Juan de Morales, 



2 2 Stories of American' History, 

a Spanish pilot, to whom they told their sad story. 
Whether they were ever released from slavery does 
not appear, but Morales was. When quite an old 
man, he entered the service of Don Enrique, known in 
history as Henry the Navigator. Don Enrique was 
the son of Joao I, King of Portugal, and Philippa, 
daughter of John of Gaunt. He was the first man of 
modern times who had a real thirst for discovery, and 
he listened eagerly to Morales. Enrique is said to 
have been the first to apply the compass to the pur- 
poses of navigation. He sent out vessels on voyages 
of discovery from time to time, and on one of these 
voyages, in 14 19, Madeira was discovered, and Porto 
Santo, an island near Madeira. The tradition is that 
the bay where the lovers died was called Macho, after 
Macham. The isle was named Madeira, from the 
Portuguese name for wood. The Canary and Azore 
Isles were found about the year 1450, and all were 
held by the King of Portugal. But what Enrique 
cared for most was to trace round the coast of Africa, 
an undertaking accomplished afterward by his country- 
men. So no more discoveries to the westward were 
at that time made. 



CHAP. III.— COLUMBUS. 

1492 1506. 






^^\/MONG the brave mariners of the Italian city of 
-^-^ Genoa was a family named Colombo. Several 
of them became famous captains, and fought against 
the pirates in the Mediterranean. One of the family, 
named Domenico, though himself a vvoolcomber, had 
three sons, whose names are connected with one of 
the most important events in the history of the world. 
Cristofero, the eldest, took early to the sea. Barto- 
lomeo became so able a mathematician, that he was 
appointed a map-maker at the Court of Portugal, 
which was under the influence of Don Enrique (Henry 
the Navigator), the great center of maritime enter- 
prise. Diego, as well as Bartolomeo, shared in after- 
life in the honors and toils of their brother, whose 
Latinized name is Christopher Columbus. Christopher 
soon reached the command of a vessel in a squadron 
fitted out by the Colombo family. In a naval en- 



24 Stories of American 'History. 

gagement his vessel took fire, and he saved his 
hfe by jumping overboard, and, with the aid of a 
plank, swimming ashore. After this escape, Columbus 
repaired to Lisbon, where he joined his brother 
Bartolomeo (Bartholomew) in his work as a map- 
maker. By-and-by he married Felipa, the only daugh- 
ter of a navigator who had shared, in the service of 
Don Enrique, in the discovery of Porto Santo and 
Madeira. His bride's father had left what proved to 
Columbus a rich inheritance in nautical instruments, 
besides a grant of Porto Santo, conferred by Don 
Enrique. The bridegroom and bride sailed to take 
possession of their islet, hoping to do great things with 
it ; but behold, they found it altogether overrun with 
rabbits, which ate up all that they planted, and were so 
numerous that it proved of no use to try to kill them 
down. So after about a year, during which a son, 
named after his uncle, Diego, was born, they left Porto 
Santo to the rabbits, and came back to Lisbon, where 
the young wife soon after died. 

That disappointment about his island was the begin- 
ning of greater things. Columbus had seen branches 
of trees cast up by the sea, carved bits of wood, and 
bodies of birds, all plainly coming from the West. He 
thought that they must be from India. As the Portu- 
guese were striving to make their way round the coast 



Columbus, 25 



of Africa, and get to India by the East, he believed 
that he could find a much shorter way by the West, 
if only he had ships and men. It was the hope of his 
heart to use the wealth of India to attack the 
Mohammedan power, make a new crusade, and deliver 
the Holy Land. He carried his plans first to the 
chiefs of his native city, Genoa ; but they thought him 
only a dreamer. Then he went to Portugal, but the 
King, to whom he gave a detail of his plans, secretly 
sent an expedition, which returned to report them as 
vain fancies. He next tried Spain, but a great war 
was going on, and no one was inclined to hsten to 
him. TraveHng on foot with his son Diego, to seek 
his brother-in-law, who resided at a small town in 
Andalusia, Columbus stopped at the gate of a Fran- 
ciscan monastery to ask food and drink for his son. 
Fray Juan Perez, the Prior of the monastery, was 
attracted by the appearance of the stranger. When 
the heart is full the speech is ready, and Columbus 
poured his story into the ears of one who could 
appreciate his pious hopes. Fray Perez detained the 
wayfarer as his guest. He procured interviews for 
him with the navigators of the neighboring port of 
Palos. And better than all, Fray Perez brought 
influences to bear which, after seventeen years of 
waiting, secured to Columbus a friend in the great and 



26 



Stories of America7i 'History. 



good Isabella, Queen of Castile in her own right, and 
wife of Fernando, King of Aragon. She aided him 
with means, and commissioned him to fit out three 




Fleet of Columbus sailing from Palos. 

vessels for the voyage of western discovery. With 
these, on the 3d of August, 1492, Christopher Co- 
lumbus set sail from the port of Palos, and the Fran- 
ciscan brothers could witness, and speed with their 
prayers, the wayfarer whom they had entertained, now 
sailing forth as High Admiral and Viceroy of all the 
lands he might discover. Columbus had sent his 
brother Bartholomew to England ; and King Henry 
invited Columbus thither. But Bartholomew was de- 



Columbus. 2 7 



tained by pirates, and meanwhile Queen Isabella gave 
the aid required. 

It would require too long to tell of all the troubles 
of Columbus with his crews, who were full of fright 
at the strange currents they met, and, when they came 
to the many acres of floating sea-weed brought by the 
Gulf Stream, thought they were come to the verge of 
the world, and would perish there. If Columbus had 
not been one of the most patient as well as the most 
daring men in the world, he would have turned back 
long before. On the night of the loth of October, a 
light was seen ; and in the morning a lovely island 
appeared with a white beach, luxuriant palm-trees, green 
sward, and a lake ghttering in their midst. Columbus, 
full of thanksgiving, landed, and dedicated it to the 
Christian faith, by planting a great cross, and naming 
it San Salvador. It was one of the Bahama Isles, the 
northern ones that close in the Gulf of Mexico. The 
natives came down to see the strange people, who they 
thought had come from Heaven in their white-winged 
ships. They were gentle, brown-skinned people, and 
Columbus was much drawn to them, and hoped to 
make them Christians. But his crew — rough, greedy 
sailors, whom he picked up as he could — only thought 
of the bits of gold they wore, and asked, by signs, 
where they came from. They were understood to 



28 Stories of American 'History. 

answer that there was a great chief in Cubanacan, who 
was served in cups and plates of gold. They meant 
the interior of the great island of Cuba, but the sound 
of the word made the discoverers think they intended 
the Khan of Tartary, of whom all Europe had heard, 
through the Venetians. So, making sure that this 
place was a little isle to the extreme East of India, 
where East had become West, the Spaniards called 
these islands the West Indies, a name they have ever 
since kept. The term Indian has been applied to all 
the natives of the whole hemisphere, except those of 
the extreme South. 

Columbus sailed from one lovely island to another, 
and making the discovery of the island of Cuba, coasted 
along its shores. Sailing from Cuba, he found the 
island of Haiti, which he called Hispaniola, or little 
Spain, where he made great friends with a good and 
gentle chief, a cacique named Guacanagari. It was 
impossible, however, to keep the Spanish sailors in 
order. They cared only for greed and pleasure, and, 
the moment his eye was off, disobeyed the Italian 
stranger. The fleetest of his ships was commanded 
by Martin Pinzon, and was sailing a few miles in 
advance of Columbus, when, having determined to 
change his course, he signaled to Pinzon to follow. 
Pinzon paid no heed. Night came on, and in the 



Columbus. 29 



morning Pinzon was no more to be seen. This was 
on the 19th of December, 1492. On the morning of 
the 25th, Columbus having charged the officers and 
pilot of his vessel to keep strict watch, retired to take 
rest, and was awakened by the striking of his vessel 
on a shoal. The wreck, which was on the coast of 
Hispaniola, was complete, and Columbus had only one 
of his three vessels left and that the smallest. With 
the assistance of Guacanagari, Columbus built a fort of 
material saved from the timbers of the wreck, and called 
it La Navidad (the Nativity), in honor of the day of 
his escape ; and he determined to return to Spain, and 
defeat the treachery of which he suspected Pinzon. 
The design of the runaway, Columbus thought, was to 
reach Spain before his commander, and defraud him 
of his honors and rewards. He left thirty-four men 
in the fort, with such munitions as could be spared, 
charging them so to live, till his return, that the natives 
might still think they had come from Heaven. Alas ! 
so far were the garrison from heeding him, that all 
except their captain so misused the natives that they 
rose on them, and killed them every man. Meantime, 
Columbus, and his runaway Pinzon, both sailed into 
Palos on the same day, the 15th of March, 1493. 
Columbus had found Pinzon just after leaving Navidad. 
They had stormy passages, sometimes in company, and 



Stories of American History. 



sometimes separated ; and Columbus never quite over- 
came his distrust, while Pinzon feared arrest for dis- 
obedience. At the very last they were separated by 




Reception of Colwnbus by Ferdinand and Isabella. 

a storm. Columbus entered Palos at noon. Pinzon, 
unaware of his arrival, came in at evening. All Spain 
welcomed Columbus. When he came to the court. 



Columbus. 



31 



the King and Queen rose to receive him, and honors 
of all kinds were heaped upon him. A coat of arms 
was assigned him, to which was annexed the motto : 
" To Castile and Leon, Columbus gave a new world." 

A new expedition was fitted out, with clergy to 
convert the natives, and preparations to build a city and 
found an empire in the New World. Unfortunately, 
few good or honorable men joined in these schemes. 
Even the head of the mission priests, Bernalo Boyle, 
or Boli, was a hard-hearted and greedy man, who had 
none of the zeal of Columbus to win souls for the 
Church and deliver the Floly Land. The second 
expedition set sail from Cadiz, on the 25th of Sep- 
tember, 1493, with seventeen vessels, three large ships, 
and fourteen of lesser tonnage. Touching at the 
Canaries, they proceeded West, till on Sunday, the 
2d of November, they discovered the central island 
of the group known as the Caribees. It was called by 
Columbus, Dominica. Several other islands in the 
group were visited, and suspicious signs were found 
that the natives were man-eaters. The word cannibal 
is supposed to be a corruption of Caribee, or Caribal. 
The natives of the Caribee group were found to be far 
fiercer than those of San Salvador and Hispaniola. 
From the Caribee islands the fleet sailed to the bay of 
Navidad, Hispaniola, trusting to be welcomed by their 



2,2 Stories of American History. 

friends in the garrison, but finding only the ruins and 
ashes of the dismantled fort. Not a man was left to 
give the Spanish version of the disaster. 

A city was founded in Hispaniola, named Isabella, 
after the Queen. Explorations by land and sea were 
made, in one of which the island of Jamaica was 
discovered. Mines were opened ; but with the de- 
velopment of enterprise, came also the growth of 
faction and enmity toward Columbus. There was a 
disposition among the Spaniards to treat the Genoese 
as a foreigner. Evil reports against him were sent to 
Spain, and among the authors of these was Father 
Boli. Columbus remained, as long and as far as he 
could, the protector of the Indians. He strove to 
think charitably of Guacanagari, who claimed, and 
with good show of evidence, that the destruction of 
Navidad was the work of another tribe. The pre- 
ponderance of testimony seems to be in his favor, as 
he died in poverty, and in the contempt of his own 
people. The more Columbus tried to protect the 
Indians, the more the Spaniards hated him» The 
result of their representations was that Don Juan 
Aguado was sent from Spain, as commissioner, to 
examine and report upon the condition of things. 
Aguado was selected as a friend of Columbus ; but 
proceeded in a spirit so arrogant and unfriendly, that 



Columbus. 



33 



Columbus decided to return with him, and defend 
himself. This he did, leaving his brother Bartholomew 
in command of Hispaniola, with his other brother, 
Diego, to succeed him in case of his death. On the 
nth of June, 1496, Columbus landed, with Aguado, at 
Cadiz. His reception by Ferdinand and Isabella was, 
contrary to his fears, highly favorable. He was loaded 
with honors, and his heirs were entitled to bear his coat 
of arms, with its honorable motto. For all this, so per- 
sistent were his enemies, that it was not till May, 1498, 
that he sailed from Spain on his third voyage of dis- 
covery. 

On this third voyage Columbus discovered the 
large island near the mouth of the Orinoco, which 
still retains the name which he gave it, Trinidad. It 
was the first time the continent was reached ; but 
though Columbus saw the mainland at the distance, 
he fancied it to be an island. He inferred, rather than 
knew, the existence of the great river Orinoco, and 
followed the coast of Trinidad through the fearful 
straits, to which he gave the names of the Dragon's 
Mouth and the Serpent's Mouth. The great difficulty 
in passing them was caused by strong currents. From 
the freshness of the water, which poured from the 
mouths of the Orinoco, Columbus judged that only a 
continent could supply such streams. Columbus was 
3 



34 Stories of American History. 

disposed to think that he was near the object of his 
search, the Indies, and that he should reach that 
country if he went along the coast, to the northwest. 
Indeed, he persuaded himself that this was the Indian 
Ophir, from which Solomon obtained the gold of the 
Temple. But the great Admiral was growing old, 
and was ill with the gout, and he was forced to make 
for the settlement in Hispaniola. He found Hispa- 
niola in a sad state. The Spaniards had provoked 
wars with the natives, and were at discord among 
themselves. The ground was untilled, and the whites 
found it impossible to work in the tropical climate. 
Columbus then decided that the Indian prisoners had 
better be put in charge of the Spanish settlers, to do 
their work, and learn Christianity and civilized ways. 
This was so reported to Queen Isabella, that she 
thought he was making slaves of her subjects the na- 
tives. A commissioner, Francisco de Bobadilla, was 
sent from Spain, who exceeded his authority, and at 
the instance of the enemies of Columbus, sent him and 
his brothers, Bartholomew and Dieg:o, home in chains. 
No sooner, however, was he able to explain matters to 
the Queen, than she understood how cruelly he had 
been wronged, burst into tears, and besought his par- 
don. It was at the end of the year 1500 that Colum- 
bus returned to Spain. Old as he was, he longed to 



Columbus. 35 



pursue the track he thought he had found. After over 
a year's delay, he prevailed to be sent out a fourth 
time, though the King forbade him to set foot on His- 
paniola. In this last voyage, Columbus sailed along 
the coast of Veragua, vainly seeking the outlet to 
India, which he had expected to find. The glimpses 
of the continent which he had seen were supposed to 
indicate islands. At length, after a storm of eighty- 
eight days, with his vessels shattered, and disease and 
discontent among his crews, he was forced to change 
his course and return. He reached Jamaica, upon 
the shore of which island he stranded his unseaworthy 
vessels, and, with his crews, lived on the wrecks. In 
two canoes, bought of the Indians, and strengthened, 
the perilous voyage was made to Hispaniola by mes- 
sengers begging for relief. For seven months Colum- 
bus did not know whether his messengers had reached 
Hispaniola. It was a year before the vessels arrived 
to his rehef, in which he sailed to Hispaniola. Thence, 
after a month's stay, he sailed for Spain, reaching Se- 
ville, after a tempestuous passage, in November, 1504. 
Ill and worn out, the first tidings that met him were 
that the good Queen Isabella was dying. All his hope 
was over now. He knew he should never lead his 
Indian crusade to free the Holy Sepulchre, and that 
his plans of making Christian men of the Indians had 



36 



Stories of American History, 



brought misery and slavery on them. A few more 
months passed of weary striving for his rights. His 
health entirely broke, and he died at ValladoHd, on the 
20th of May, Ascension day, 1506, being about seventy 
years of age. His two sons kept the motto and coat 
of arms which had been assigned to him. 




CHAP. IV.— THE ADVENTURES OF 
ALONZO DE OJEDA. 



1499. 

IT was an Italian who found the great Western 
Continent, and it was another Italian whose name 
it bears. In 1499, a Florentine merchant, named 
Amerigo Vespucci, set forth on an expedition, com- 
manded by a brave and daring Spanish gentleman, 
Alonzo de Ojeda, who had been with Columbus on 
his second voyage. Hearing of the great Admiral's 
third voyage along the Gulf of Paria, Ojeda persuaded 
the rich merchants of Seville to fit out four ships, with 
which he hoped to bring them home more gold than 
the islands had yet produced. Ojeda was a very small 
man, but wonderfully brave, daring, and spirited. He 
was withal very devout, and carried about with him a 
little picture of the Blessed Virgin, which, he thought, 
shielded him from all hurt. Amerigo Vespucci wrote 
an account of this expedition, and therefore it was that 



38 Stories of American History, 

his name came to be given to the lands he beheld. 
After passing the Isle of Trinidad and the Dragon's 
Mouth, the ships came to a bay filled with tranquil 
water. In this bay were bell-shaped houses, built 
upon piles driven into the sand, communicating with 
the shore by drawbridges, and by canoes, which were 
drawn up around the houses. This place, the Indian 
name of which was Coquibacoa, the discoverers called 
Venezuela, or little Venice. The Indians were very 
fine, handsome people, armed with bows and arrows. 
They fought with the strangers, but were worsted. 
Ojeda did not gain much by his voyage. He returned 
to Spain, and, through his personal friends, obtained 
the appointment of Governor of Coquibacoa. His 
second voyage ended in his arrest by his partners, and 
a lawsuit, by which, though successful, he was left 
penniless. It had now, despite the misfortunes of 
discoverers, become the fashion for every one who was 
adventurous, to set out on a westward voyage to seek 
the land of gold. El Dorado, the place of gold, was 
thought to be somewhere in the West. Ship after 
ship was fitted out in quest of it, and each surveyed a 
bit more of the coast of South America, and generally 
taught the Indians more and more hatred of the white 
man. Of a third voyage which Ojeda is said to have 
made there are no records. For several years he 



The Adventures of Alonzo de OJeda. 39 

remained in obscurity. But, in 1509, King Ferdinand 
of Spain was induced to send out four ships, with three 
hundred men, to found a settlement in the place where 
Columbus thought he had discovered the gold of 
Ophir. The settlement was to be called Carthagena, 
or New Carthage. Ojeda joined the expedition at 
Hispaniola, commissioned as governor of a province 
to be called New Andalusia. Among the men en- 
gaged in this expedition were two of whom we shall 
hear much later — Fernando Cortes and Francisco 
Pizarro. The former, however, had to be left at 
Hispaniola, because of an inflammation in his knee. 
Juan de la Cosa, a most accomplished pilot, familiar 
with the coasts and seas to be explored, and who had 
visited Spain to forward the enterprise, came out with 
the ship to join in the voyage. Under the guidance 
of the veteran pilot, the ships anchored. In the autumn 
of 1509, in the bay of Carthagena. Cosa, who had 
touched at the place on a former voyage, warned Ojeda 
that the natives were Caribs, and very fierce, using 
great palm-wood swords, osier shields, and poisoned 
arrows, and the women fighting as well as the men. 
He advised going on to the Gulf of Uraba, where, he 
thought, the natives were less ferocious, and did not 
poison their weapons ; but Ojeda would not heed ad- 
vice, and advanced into the country. A body of In- 



40 Stories of Americart History. 

dians met him, whereupon he charged a priest to read 
a paper taking possession of the country, and then 
held up presents, and tried to make friends. The In- 
dians would not listen, blew war notes on their conch- 
shells, and drew their bows. After a sharp fight, the 
Spaniards gained a victory; but, against old Cosa's 
advice, pursued the flying enemy too far inland. 
Other Indians joined the foe in great numbers. 
Ojeda was cut off, and, with a few men, obliged to 
defend himself in a hut, where he would have been 
overpowered, if faithful Cosa had not come to the 
rescue. Cosa defended the door, while Ojeda sprang 
forth on the enemy, cut his way through them, and 
dashed out of sight. Then Cosa and one other man 
attempted to regain the ships, but Cosa, who had been 
pierced by several poisoned arrows, sank down on the 
way, and died. His companion was the only man, of 
seventy, who reached the ships. There the crews 
waited, watched, and searched the shores for the 
others, till, after many days, they came to a great 
wood of mangroves, curious trees which grow in the 
water, but with roots rising far above the surface, 
before the trunk begins, so that there is a great matted 
thicket half under the sea. There they thought they 
saw a man in Spanish clothing, and found Ojeda, 
lyihg speechless with hunger and fatigue on the matted 



The Adventures of Alonzo de Ojeda. 41 

roots ; his sword in his hand, and his shield on his 
arm, without a wound, though there were the marks 
of three hundred arrows on his shield. On his re- 
covery, he followed the advice which Cosa had given, 
sailed to the bay of Uraba, and founded there a city, 
which he named St. Sebastian, but he did not find the 
country much more favorable. The vegetation was 
beautiful, but the forests were full of wild beasts and 
venomous serpents, and the rivers were full of alli- 
gators, so large that they could kill a horse. Ojeda 
built here a fortress, and surrounded his settlement 
with a stockade. The Indians swarmed around it, and 
shot down the Spaniards who came out in search of 
food, and the poisoned arrows caused death in terri- 
ble agony. Ojeda had never yet been struck. He 
thought himself under the special care of the Blessed 
Virgin, and the Indians thought he was protected by 
some spell. They told off their four best archers to 
watch and hit him. Three of their arrows glanced 
from his shield, but the fourth arrow pierced his thigh. 
Even then, his dauntless spirit was not broken. He 
caused two plates of iron to be heated red-hot, and 
placed on each side of the wound, and endured the 
horrible agony without a groan, and without being 
held. Afterward he lay in sheets steeped in vinegar, 
to allay the heat that raged through his whole body ; 



42 Stories of American •History. 

and this strange treatment cured him. While he was 
disabled, a runaway party arrived from Hispaniola, 
fancying he was getting rich. But when they saw 
the misery of the colonists, they had no wish to stay 
there, and Ojeda resolved to go back in their ship, and 
obtain the supplies so much needed at St. Sebastian. 
The crew were a set of wretches who put him in irons. 
As soon as a storm rose, they were forced to let him 
loose again, as he was the only man on board who 
could manage a ship in danger. All that even he 
could do was to run the shattered wreck aground on 
the island of Cuba. Here was no Spanish settlement, 
but the natives had heard enough of the white men to 
hate them, and drive them away. They had to toil 
through swamps, which were frightfully deep ; the 
route furnished nothing to eat or to drink, for these 
marshes were salt. All day long they struggled 
through water up to their waists, and at night climbed 
into mangrove-trees to sleep. Every day some were 
drowned or smothered in the mud, and the food 
brought from the ship was scarcely eatable. Still at 
each pause Ojeda knelt and prayed, and he made a 
vow that, if he were saved this time, he would build 
a chapel, and set up his picture of Our Lady among 
the heathen. After thirty days of misery in the 
swamps, Ojeda, with a very few, survived, and found 



The Adve7it2ires of Alonzo de Ojeda. 43 

a path which led them to a village of friendly natives, 
who sheltered and nursed them, nay, treated them like 
angels. And here Ojeda raised a little hut, where he 
hung his picture, and bade the Indians take care of it, 
till he should come back to found a church. Then he 
and the others made their way to Jamaica in canoes. 
Thence he returned to Hispaniola, but he never could 
obtain means of going back to St. Sebastian, or of 
building his church. He was a ruined man; and it is 
said that he ended by taking the vows of the Brothers 
of St. Francis, and died as one of that order. Though 
proud and passionate, he was one of the best of the 
Spanish adventurers. 




CHAP, v.— PRINCESS ANACAONA. 

'T^HE mountains of Cibao, in the midst of the island 
of Hispaniola, and the rivers flowing from them, 
were found to contain gold. Columbus explored this 
region in 1494. A settlement was formed by him for 
working the mines, and a fort, called San Thomas, 
built for the protection of the miners. The city and 
bishopric of San Domingo were founded four years 
later, and the name had spread to the whole island. 

The difficulties of government were great. Crowds 
of needy Spaniards came out, wanting gold first and 
land next, and when they had land they wanted people 
to till it. At home Queen Isabella had been most 
anxious for the good of the poor Indians. So was the 
council who governed Castile, after the death of 
Isabella, in behalf of poor mad Juana, daughter of 
Ferdinand and Isabella. Bishops, priests, and brethren 
of the preaching orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic 
were sent out to convert the natives. But nothing 



Princess Anacaona. 45 

good could be done in the presence of the Spanish 
settlers. They would attack and offend the Indians 
by their pride and greed of gold, which, indeed, some 
of the natives thought was the white man's god. Then 
the Indians were stirred up, and even in the time of 
Columbus it was necessary to take the field against 
them, as they were reported to be forming a league 
against the Spaniards. There were murders and 
fightings, and when the white men gained the advan- 
tage, as with their fire-arms and horses they were sure 
to do, they took many prisoners, and received the 
submission of tribes. Then, considering the great 
need of workmen, Columbus had thought it fair to 
make these captives work ; portioning off a chief and 
his family on what was called a repartimiento to a 
Spanish settler. The settler was, in return for their 
labor, to teach them the Christian faith and habits. 
But this arrangement generally ended in the Spaniards 
teaching them nothing but hard work in the mines, of 
which they died. 

In Spain orders and orders were given for the pro- 
tection of the poor Indians ; and governors were 
chosen in the hope that they would restrain the greedy 
settlers. But these governors no sooner touched the 
western soil than they seemed to catch the same in- 
fection of cruelty. Nicolas de Ovando, who came out 



46 Stories of A7nerica7i History, 

as governor of Hispaniola in 1502, was one of the 
worst and most cruel of these men. The first news 
that met Ovando on landing was that an enormous 
nugget of gold, worth about 2,000 dollars, had been 
raked out at the mines, by an Indian woman ; and that 
there was a rising of the Indians, so that there would 
be plenty of slaves. Almost every one who had come 
out with Ovando rushed off to the mines. There they 
could get no wholesome food, fell sick, and died in 
large numbers. Sensible people soon perceived that 
the men who sought for gold were only wretched and 
miserable, while those who cultivated the ground soon 
grew rich on that very gold. But farmers and gold- 
diggers were equally savage to the poor Indians ; and 
when the beaten, overworked wretches ran away, they 
were hunted down with great Spanish bloodhounds, 
which often tore them to pieces in a most horrible way. 
Of all the piteous stories of savage things done in that 
island of Hispaniola, perhaps the most grievous is that 
of the Princess Anacaona. 

It will be remembered that the friendly cacique, 
Guacanagari, represented to Columbus that the de- 
struction of the fortress Navidad was the work of 
another but unfriendly cacique. The name of this 
cacique was Caonabo. He remained to the last the 
foe of the Spaniards, fomenting plots and instigating 



Princess Anacaona, 47 

wars against them. He is said to have been of Carib 
birth, a race more fierce and warlike than the Indians 
of Hispaniola, over whom he appears to have exerted 
great influence. He was deceived, made captive by a 
stratagem, and placed on board a vessel to be sent to 
Spain, but died on the passage. The wife of Caonabo 
was Anacaona, a princess celebrated for beauty and 
accomplishments. Her brother, Behechio, was cacique 
of Xaragua, a large district at the western extremity of 
the island, and with him Anacaona retired after the 
defeat of Caonabo and his confederate caciques. 

Anacaona is said to have been sensible that her 
husband had provoked the enmity of the Spaniards, 
and to have retained the admiration for them with 
which the Indians first saw them. She was, moreover, 
wise enough to perceive that resistance against them 
was hopeless. She had great influence over her 
brother, was beloved by his subjects, and when Behe- 
chio died, succeeded him in the government ; always 
restraining her people from intercourse with the Span- 
iards. It was believed or pretended that she was plan- 
ning a revolt. Thereupon Ovando set out for Xaragua 
with three hundred foot-soldiers and seventy horsemen 
fully armed, under the pretext that he was coming to 
make a friendly visit. Anacaona received him after 
the hospitable custom of her tribe ; coming out to 



48 Stories of American' History. 

meet him at the head of all her chief kindred, the maid- 
ens dancing and waving palms before him, and greet- 
ing him with songs. Perhaps these songs of welcome 
were of her own composing ; for it is said of her that 
she was, in her native fashion, a poet. She lodged him 
in the largest house in her beautiful village, among 
the palms and bananas, and entertained him day after 
day with feasts, songs, and dances, as she had always 
treated her white visitors. 

It is to be hoped that it was really true that Ovando 
fancied she meant to betray him. But even if that 
were true, he acted with frightful cruelty and treach- 
ery ; for she had not done a single unfriendly act when 
he arranged his plot. He offered to show off the Span- 
ish sports ; and on Sunday, after dinner, in the central 
place in the village, his horsemen tilted against each 
other with long reeds, in the Moorish fashion, and one 
of them made his horse curvet and dance to the music 
of a viol. Suddenly, while all the Indians were gazing 
at the sight, Ovando gave the signal, by touching a 
gold medal which hung around his neck. His soldiers 
sprang upon the defenseless people, bound the caciques 
to the posts of the house, and put them to horrible 
tortures to force them to confess their queen's alleged 
plot. The poor caciques said whatever the Spaniards 
wished, to free themselves from the pain ; but it served 



Princess Anacaona. 49 

them little, for they were all, eighty-four in number, 
burned or hanged. Queen Anacaona herself was taken 
in chains to San Domingo. There she had the form 
of a trial, and was condemned and executed on the 
forced confessions of her tortured subjects. All her 
people were massacred, or made prisoners to work in 
cruel slavery, except a few who escaped in their canoes. 
For months the district of Xaragua was ravaged by 
the Spaniards ; and the region which had lately been 
a perfect paradise of beauty and delight was made a 
place of slaughter and a wilderness. Ovando founded 
a city in Xaragua, which he called " St. Mary of True 
Peace." These horrible deeds, crowned by sacrilege, 
were done in 1503. 




CHAP. VI.— THE CURSE OF AMERICA. 

1510. 

WHEREVER the Christian religion is taught, 
there is sure to be a witness against wicked- 
ness, even if it is not intended to. The Domini- 
can Friars looked on with horror at the treatment 
of the Indians, and one of them. Father Antonio 
Montesino, preached two sermons, setting before the 
Spaniards the exceeding wickedness of their behav- 
ior in the sight of God. The hearers came to the 
monastery in a great rage, but they got little comfort 
there ; for these good friars told them that they would 
give the Sacraments to no man who went out hunting 
and making slaves of the Indians. 

The settlers minded this the less, because the 
brethren of the order of St. Francis always took the 
contrary side from those of St. Dominic. The 
Franciscans said that the heathen men had no right 
to be free ; and that enslaving them was the best 
chance of making them Christians. At last. Brother 



The Curse of America, 51 

Antonio went to Spain, and told the King, to his 
face, horrible stories which his governors had kept 
from him ; how thirteen Indians had been hanged in a 
row, how many were hunted and torn by dogs, how 
they were worked to death under the lash in the 
mines ; and how, when there were too few left to 
work in the gold diggings in Hispaniola, ships were 
sent to the Lucayan Islands to persuade the poor 
natives to come to the Isles of the Blest, where the 
spirits of their ancestors lived! He told how, purely 
in sport, a Spaniard had picked up a little Indian 
child, and thrown it over the heads of the by- 
standers, into the sea, laughing and joking as it came 
two or three times to the surface. 

The King's anger was hot when he heard these 
things of the people whom his good Queen had loved 
and hoped to win for Christ. A council was held at 
Burgos, and laws were made, not taking away the 
custom of making the Indians work, but trying to 
hinder all the horrid injustice and cruelty. At the 
same time negroes began to be brought to the islands. 
Ever since the time when the Portuguese began 
sailing to the African coast, they had made their chief 
profit from the sale of negroes, whom they had taken, 
as the Spaniards did the Indians, under the pretense 
of teaching them to be Christians. In 15 10, the 



52 Stories of American* History, 

Genoese merchants brought the first negroes to 
Hispaniola, and they were soon found to bear work 
in that climate much better than the Indians ; and did 
not run away, because, poor things, they had nowhere 
to run to. They were much more tame and less 
dangerous than the Caribs, and thus the Spaniards 
preferred them ; and the great sin and curse of Amer- 
ica was begun, by the constant habit of obtaining 
blacks from the coasts of Guinea by stealing, or, more 
often, by buying them from hostile tribes, and carrying 
them over to work in the West Indies. 

The settlements there had begun to spread into 
the great Island of Cuba. Two friends, a gentleman 
named Pedro de Rentezia, and a 3^oung priest, Barto- 
lome de las Casas, had a grant in Cuba, and a reparti- 
miento of Indians. They were good and kindly men, 
but had not thought of trying to convert their Indians, 
or troubled themselves about the crime of making 
them slaves. There was only one other priest in the 
island, and Las Casas, though he had hitherto been 
more of a farmer than a clergyman, was sometimes 
obliged to preach. As he was preparing a sermon, he 
came upon the thirty-fourth chapter of Ecclesiasticus, 
and there read : "He that sacrificeth of a thing unlaw- 
fully gotten, his offering is ridiculous, and the gifts of 
unjust men are not accepted. The Most High is not 



The Curse of America, 53 

pleased with the offerings of the wicked, neither is He 
pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. Whoso 
bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor, doeth as 
one that killeth the son before the father's eyes." 
What, then, thought Las Casas, must God think of 
the treatment of the Indians ? He remembered how 
one of the good friars in Hispaniola had refused to 
give him absolution while he kept Indians in servi- 
tude. He had then been angry, and thought it ab- 
surd ; but now the good seed had borne fruit, and he 
resolved, in the first place, to give up all his own In- 
dians. He had, however, to wait till his mate, Ren- 
tezia, should return from Jamaica, where he had gone 
to another Spanish colony on business, and he was 
very anxious to know whether his friend would consent. 
Rentezia had been spending Lent there, and had gone 
into retreat in a convent. During this quiet time, it 
had likewise been borne in on him how great was their 
sin toward the poor natives. He had come to the con- 
clusion that it was their duty to give up slave-keeping, 
and to try to found colleges and schools, where the 
young, at least, might be taught the Christian faith. 

The two good men were delighted to find them- 
selves thus agreed, and they resolved to sell their 
farm, and use the proceeds for the teaching of the 
Indians. Las Casas went home to lay the case of the 



54 Stories of American' History, 

Indians before the King. Ferdinand was then an old 
man, and he died soon after the arrival of Las Casas, 
in 1 516. His poor daughter Juana was mad, and her 
son Charles reigned over the kingdoms of Spain and 
the Indies. If edicts at home could have done any 
good, the Indians would have been free men, well 
and gently trained in Christian ways. But the isles 
were far off, and full of greedy men, who paid no atten- 
tion to the laws at home. The only one they cared 
to carry out was one that Las Casas had unfortu- 
nately recommended, hoping to benefit the Indians, 
namely, that each white man should be licensed to 
import a dozen negro slaves. The good man grieved 
for it afterward, and perceived that to steal and en- 
slave negroes was quite as cruel and unjust as to do 
the same by Indians. He spent his life in struggling 
hard to teach, console, and protect the Indians, but 
always in vain. He went from one place to another, 
tried one experiment after another, and failed again 
and again. As time went on, the Indian race perished 
under the savage brutality of the gold-hunting Span- 
iards in the West Indian Islands ; while negroes 
snatched from the coast of Africa filled up the place 
they had left empty ; and gangs of black slaves 
worked in the gold-mines, pearl-fisheries, and planta- 
tions of sugar, spices, and cotton. 



CHAP. VIL— THE FIRST SIGHT OF THE 

PACIFIC. 

1513. 

/Tv HERE was coming out from Hispaniola, under 
~L the leadership of a lawyer named Enciso, a fresh 
party to assist in founding the colony of St. Sebastian 
on the coast of South America. Alonzo de Ojeda, 
who attempted that settlement, had invited Enciso to 
join him, and tendered him the office of alcalde in the 
new city. The expedition of Enciso had not been 
long at sea when the crew of one of the vessels were 
amazed by a large cask which stood on deck suddenly 
being opened. Out of it came Vasco Nunez de Bal- 
boa, a Spanish gentleman who had been a settler in 
Hispaniola, and had there got into debt and difficulty, 
from which he was thus making his escape. 

Enciso was not at all pleased with the mode in 
which this volunteer showed himself, but Vasco over- 
came his anger, and was the more acceptable since he 



56 Stories of American- History. 

had the experience of a previous voyage along the 
coast. The expedition touched at the harbor of Car- 
thagena, where Ojeda met so hostile a reception, but 
managed to avoid collision with the natives. Enciso 
was here surprised by the arrival of a vessel in com- 
mand of Francisco Pizarro, whom Ojeda had left as 
his deputy at St. Sebastian. The vessel had on board 
all who survived of the garrison of St. Sebastian, hav- 
ing been compelled by starvation and danger to aban- 
don that post. Enciso, by his authority as alcalde of 
St. Sebastian, induced Pizarro and his men to return 
to that post with him. They found the fort disman- 
tled, the climate dreadful, and the natives so fierce that 
it was no use to stay there. Vasco advised moving on 
to the river of Darien, where the natives were less fierce, 
and did not poison their arrows. The advice was 
taken, the move was made, and the Spaniards drove 
the Indians from a village on the banks of the River 
Darien. Enciso took possession of the place, and gave 
it the name of Santa Maria. The colonists soon di- 
vided into factions. Vasco and Enciso quarreled, and 
at last Vasco, who was the favorite of the soldiers, 
threw Enciso into prison, for, as he said, taking the 
government without proper appointment. Enciso, 
however, had friends powerful enough to oblige Vasco 
to let him go back to Spain and plead his cause. 



The First Sight of the Pacific. 57 

Left alone in the command, Vasco de Balboa made 
a visit to Careta, Cacique of Coyba, who hospitably re- 
ceived him. He repaid his kindness by returning at 
night after a pretended departure, seizing the cacique, 
his wives and children, loading two vessels with 
plunder, and taking his captives and his booty with 
him to Santa Maria. He showed to his prisoner his 
war-horses, armor, and guns, and the Indian was so im- 
pressed with the power of the Spaniard, that he offered 
him his daughter as the price and pledge of peace. 
Balboa, seeing the convenience of an alliance with a 
powerful chieftain, accepted the daughter ; and a com- 
pact was made by which the chieftain agreed to furnish 
food for the colonists, and Balboa to subdue the chief- 
tain's enemy, with whom he was then at war. Balboa 
performed his part of the contract, subduing the ca- 
cique his father-in-law's enemy, and ravaging his terri- 
tory. He was royally entertained after his victory by 
Careta. 

Balboa next paid a visit to a friendly cacique named 
Comagre, who hospitably welcomed him, and showed 
him his palace. It was a wonderful place, one hundred 
and fifty paces long and eighty broad, founded on great 
logs, surrounded with a stone wall, and covered with a 
beautifully carved roof. It had many chambers for 
different kinds of stores ; and one hall contained the 



58 Stories of American History. 

remains of the cacique's family, which had been dried 
in the fire and then wrapped in cotton, adorned with 
gold and precious stones, and hung up by cords. The 
cacique gave Balboa four thousand ounces of gold made 
up into ornaments. Of this he weighed out a fifth for 
the King's share, and divided the rest in equal shares 
with his followers. The cacique was surprised and 
shocked at their fierce eagerness over the division. 
He pointed to the south, and told Balboa that if he 
cared so much for gold, he would find abundance 
beyond the mountains. From their tops could be 
seen a mighty sea, and all the streams that flowed into 
it so abounded in gold that the kings who reigned 
there used only golden vessels, and indeed gold was 
as common among them as iron was among the 
Spaniards. 

He added that the way was difficult and dangerous, 
and beset with cannibal Indians ; but all this was 
nothing to Vasco. He sent for provisions and recruits 
to Don Diego, son of Christopher Columbus, who was 
then governing at St. Domingo, in Hispaniola. Mean- 
while he received private advices from Spain that 
Enciso had succeeded in the suit against him, and that 
he would be summoned to Spain to answer criminal 
charges. He was resolved to set forth before the 
official news should arrive, or factions at Darien pre- 



The First Sight of the Pacific, 59 

vent him. He moved on the expedition with one 
hundred and ninety of his bravest men, a number of 
Indians furnished by the cacique his father-in-law, and 
also a pack of bloodhounds. These terrible dogs had 
been trained by the cruel Spaniards to hunt down and 
fly at the poor runaway Indians, and were looked on 
by them with the utmost horror and dread. Vasco 
Nunez had one of these dogs, named Leonico, im- 
mensely strong, tawny, with a black muzzle ; and so 
brave and so much feared by the Indians, that when 
his master lent him to a plundering party, he received 
for him a share of the booty equal to that of a man-at- 
arms. 

The journey was a very hard one. The Spaniards 
had to climb rugged precipices, and fight with tribes 
of Indians ; and so many men were lost, or had to be 
sent back to the village of the friendly cacique, that 
only sixty-seven men were with Vasco Nunez when, 
on the 26th of September, 15 13, he climbed the last 
height alone, and beheld before him the unbroken ex- 
panse of the mighty Western Ocean. He called his 
followers to his side, pointed it out, and bade them 
thank God. A friar who was among them led the Te 
Deum of rejoicing, and a list was drawn up of those 
who first beheld this great sight. The names of 
Ferdinand, King of Aragon, and his daughter Juana, 



6o 



Stories of American' History. 



Queen of Castile, were carved on the great trees 
around. 



"K 



^¥ 




.^>-^*^ 



I 



The Spaniards had 
still a long way to go 
before they reached 
the shores of the great 
sea. They fought 
with an Indian ca- 
cique named Chiapes, but overcame him, and Vasco 
Nunez made him into a warm friend. When at last 



Balboa's First Sight of the Pacific. 



The First Sight of the Pacific. 6t 

he came to the shore, Balboa waded into the water 
above his knees, and took possession of the ocean for 
the sovereigns of Spain. The spot was in the Bay 
of Panama, close to the Gulf of San Miguel, the 
name given by Vasco Nunez himself, intending to 
consecrate the mighty ocean to St. Michael, the arch- 
angel. After a time Vasco undertook to build a fleet 
with which to navigate the Western or Pacific Ocean. 
He caused the timber to be cut and prepared at Ada, 
a town founded at a port in the country of his father- 
in-law. Careta favored his purpose, and accorded as- 
sistance. The ship-timber and other material was car- 
ried on the backs of Indians over the mountains and 
across the Isthmus of Darien. It was a cruel scheme, 
for the work was far too hard for the Indians whom he 
forced into doing it, supplying their places with others 
as fast as they died of the toil. 

Meanwhile, the representations of Enciso at the 
court of Spain had resulted in the appointment of Don 
Pedro Arias Davila, commonly called Pedrarias, as 
Governor of Darien, with power to depose Vasco 
Nunez and call him to account for his treatment of 
Enciso. After the sailing of Pedrarias from Spain the 
messengers from Nunez arrived there, bringing news 
of his great discovery, and presents to the King of 
pearls and golden ornaments. Pedrarias arrived at his 



62 Stories of American' History. 

new government, and proved harsh and cruel to the 
Indians. Now Vasco knew how to make them trust 
him, and be friendly ; and the contrast between the 
two Spanish commanders added daily to their mutual 
dislike. Before Pedrarias could attempt to depose a 
popular favorite, a commission arrived from Spain 
appointing Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Adelantado or 
Lieutenant in the government, in recognition of his 
valuable discoveries and successes, Pedrarias was im- 
placable. He induced Balboa to leave the Pacific 
coast, where he had begun to make explorations in his 
new ships. He invited him to a friendly conference at 
Ada, where Francisco Pizarro was deputed to arrest 
him. He was accused as a traitor and usurper of the 
territories of the Spanish Crown, and of an intention 
to put to sea with the squadron in the Pacific and defy 
the governor. Upon these charges Vasco Nunez was 
convicted and beheaded, with four of his friends. Thus 
perished this brave and generally kind and faithful 
man, one of the most illustrious of the Spanish adven- 
turers, when only forty-two years old, and just about 
to sail on the great ocean he had discovered. 




CHAP. VIIL- 



-THE WAY 
PACIFIC. 



INTO THE 



1520. 

/TV HE kings who had refused to attend to Columbus 
-L were much disappointed when they found how 
far from a mere wild-goose chase his plans had been. 
Henry VII of England had sent out an expedition, 
under a Venetian father and son, named Cabot, who, 
in 1496-98, touched at the island which still bears the 
name of Newfoundland, and coasted along the conti- 
nent of North America, from Labrador to Florida. 
As no signs of gold were found, nothing more was for 
some time done by the English. 

The Portuguese king, Don Manuel, was also eager 
to make discoveries. Vasco de Gama had rounded 
Africa, and Pope Eugene IV had granted the Portu- 
guese a right to all the new lands they might discover. 
This power the Popes claimed as Vicars of Christ, be- 
cause of those prophecies of the Old Testament, which 



64 Stories of American •History, 

speak of the kingdom of Christ stretching to the east 
and west, from one sea to another. Ferdinand and 
Isabella asked also the papal sanction, and Pope 
Alexander VI fixed as a boundary a line running 
from pole to pole, three hundred leagues to the west- 
ward of the Azores. All the lands eastward of this 
were granted to Portugal, and all to the westward to 
Spain. 

An expedition was sent out from Portugal in 1500, 
under Dom Pedro Alvarez Cabral. It was intended 
to go to India, and was sent off in great state from 
Lisbon, with solemn blessings by the clergy, the com- 
mander receiving a cap sent by the Pope himself. 
However, when they had passed the Cape Verd 
Islands, a strong wind drove them away from Africa, 
across the Atlantic, till they came to w^hat they took 
for a large island. The natives came down to the 
beach, wearing crowns of brightly-colored feathers, but 
no clothes, and their copper skins were painted in 
many hues. They had white bones through their ears 
and cheeks, and a great hole in the under lip, in which 
some wore a stone and some thrust out the tongue. 
Their eyelashes, eyebrows, and beards had all been 
pulled out. They were spoken to in Negro language 
and Arabic, but of course answered to neither ; though 
two, who were afterward caught in a canoe, did better 



The Way hito the Pacific. 65 

understand the language of beads and looking-glasses. 
For these they gave in exchange fruit, maize, and the 
flour of the root of the mandioc shrub, which we still 
know as " arrow-root." 

On Easter Sunday a large body of the Portuguese 
landed, and a solemn mass was celebrated, the natives 
hovering about, and imitating the gestures of the 
Portuguese. Cabral set up a large stone cross, and 
took possession of the country for his king, naming 
it Santa Cruz. He left behind him two men. It 
was the custom of the discoverers of those times to 
take from the prisons men under sentence of death, 
and leave them behind among the natives, to take 
their chance, learn the language, and prepare for new- 
comers. 

The ships then went on to India, and on their 
return to Portugal, King Manuel sent out three ships 
under Amerigo Vespucci. These fell in with a few 
more savage tribes, who killed and devoured three of 
the sailors, whom they had made prisoners ; one of 
them actually in view of his horrified comrades in the 
boats, before whom the savages held up pieces of his 
limbs. Vespucci sailed along a great length of coast, 
and then, as it was late in the year, crossed to Africa. 

In 1503, Amerigo, still intending to go to India, 
sailed with six ships, and was driven upon the coast 



66 Stories of American History. 

which he had already visited. Five of these vessels 
were lost, and Vespucci, landing, remained five months, 
made friends with the natives, and built a fort. One of 
the five vessels lost was wrecked, and her crew were 
taken off. The other four were never heard from. In 
the fort he left twenty-four men who had been saved 
from the wreck. As before, he took home a cargo of 
gums and spices, and a red wood, already known to 
the Portuguese, and much prized by them. It was 
called, from its color, brazil, or burning wood, and 
the country came to be named Brazil, instead of the 
name, given at first, of Santa Cruz. Many adventur- 
ers went out thither to obtain this wood, with the abun- 
dant gums and spices. Monkeys and parrots were also 
among the imports of the early navigators into Europe. 
An expedition was fitted out in Spain to sail for 
Brazil, under Amerigo Vespucci, but it never set forth. 
Vespucci had entered the service of the King of Spain, 
however, and received a liberal salary as principal 
pilot, preparing charts and sailing directions. He 
died in 15 12, his widow was pensioned, and his son 
was taken into royal favor. Shortly after his last 
return from Brazil, he wrote a letter, giving an account 
of his voyages. This letter was published, not, however, 
at Vespucci's instance, and the publisher suggested the 
name of America for the newly-discovered continent. 



The Way into the Pacific. 67 

It became a subject of dispute between Spain and 
Portugal to whom Brazil belonged. But, as the coast 
of Brazil was clearly to the east of the line established 
by the Pope, the Portuguese claimed it ; while Spain 
construed the papal decree to mean that all lands 
discovered by sailing west belonged to her. In 151 1, 
Don Juan Diaz de Solis sailed from Spain, still hunt- 
ing for the western passage to India. Sailing along 
the coast of the continent to the south, he came to 
what he took for a sea of fresh water, but was really 
the mouth of a great river, the Rio de la Plata. Going 
ashore with a small party, he was cut off by the 
natives, who broke forth from an ambush, shattered 
the boat with their clubs, killed every man who had 
landed, then carried their bodies to a place within 
sight of the ships, cooked and devoured them. The 
terrified explorers returned at once to Spain. 

In 1 5 19, Fernando de Magelhaens or Magellan, a 
Portuguese mariner in the service of Spain, sailed with 
five Spanish ships from Seville. He followed the 
coast of South America, looking still for the western 
passage to India. In the mouth of the La Plata, 
where poor Solis had fallen, he thought he had found 
it, but discovering his mistake he proceeded south. 
He found some gigantic people, whom he called Pata- 
gonians, because he fancied their feet were patas or 



68 Stories of American' History. 

pads, like those of lions or dogs. He passed the 
straits, which still bear his name, between the land of the 
Patagonians and a bare volcanic island, which he 
named Tierra del Fuego, or land of fire. The difficult 
and dangerous passage occupied twenty days, and he 
came out into the southern part of the ocean which 
Balboa had seen from the Isthmus of Darien. He 
found the ocean so peaceful that he named it the 
Pacific. Sailing onward, he did what Columbus had 
aimed at, for he reached the most eastward of the 
islands of Asia, and thus nearly came round from 
extreme west to extreme east. He did not live, how- 
ever, to tell the tale. Touching at a fruitful group of 
islands, where his crew were refreshed, but which he 
called the Ladrones, from the thievish character of the 
inhabitants, he next proceeded to the group now known 
as the Philippines. Here, in resisting an attack from a 
large body of the natives, Magellan was killed, with 
several of his officers. But the survivors continued 
the voyage, and visited the Portuguese settled in the 
East, to their extreme astonishment. One of the fleet 
of five vessels with which Magellan sailed from Spain 
reached home again on the 7th of September, 1522; 
having made the first voyage round the globe in three 
years and twenty-eight days. 



CHAP. IX.— THE AZTEC EMPIRE. 

1513- 

)t(hE desire of finding the great empire, full of 
JL gold, of which the Indians spoke, still drew on 
adventurer after adventurer. In the year 15 18 Fer- 
nando Cortes, a Spanish gentleman of Estremadura, 
obtained from the Governor of Cuba a fleet of seven 
ships, with a force of five hundred and fifty soldiers, 
twelve or fifteen horses, and ten brass cannon, where- 
with to seek this wonderful place. It was quite true 
that there was such an empire. Indeed, there were 
two such lands of gold : one in North America, called 
Anahuac ; the other, named Peru, in the mountains of 
South America. The inhabitants of Anahuac were 
called Aztecs. They were not like the wild Indians 
on the coast, but dwelt in cities, had temples, a priest- 
hood, and a regular form of government with an 
emperor at its head. They had good roads and 
regular communication between city and city. Though 



JO Stories of American History. 

they had no alphabet they recorded their history in 
a sort of hieroglyphic work, painted in brilliant colors 
on cloth, or on prepared skins, or on paper made from 
the aloe plant. They had also pictures in feather- 
work, with which their palaces were hung. Iron was 
not known among them, and their tools and weapons 
were of copper, tin, and sharpened stones ; their vessels 
either of clay, earthenware, or of gold and silver. 

They had many gods ; thirteen principal ones, and 
more than two hundred of lesser rank, with a numerous 
body of priests. Their temples were sometimes Hke 
pyramids, with steps on the outside, and broad terraces 
at different stages ; but, instead of finishing in a point, 
there was a broad flat space on the top, where stood 
two towers with the images of the gods in them. In 
front of each was an altar, and the stone of sacrifice, 
on which, unhappily, the victims were human beings — 
generally captives taken in war. They were laid flat 
on the stone, and their hearts cut out and cast at 
the feet of the idol. Little children, wreathed with 
flowers, were carried in litters to the temple of the 
god of rain, and there sacrificed ; and the corpses were 
feasted upon in banquets, served up with the choicest 
cookery and splendid ornaments. It is reckoned that 
not less than twenty thousand human beings perished 
each year in this manner. 



The Aztec Empire. 



71 



Yet the Aztecs lived in considerable civilization, 
and understood many of the sciences, in their own 
method, especially arithmetic and astronomy. They 
farmed every inch of 
land in their moun- 
tainous country, grow- 
ing Indian corn, bana- 
na, and cocoa (whence 
was made chocolate), 
and the great aloe, or 
maguey. The juice of 
this plant was ferment- 
ed into a liquor called 
pulque. The fibers of 
the leaves formed 
thread and cordage, 
the thorns, pins and 
needles ; the leaves 

made thatch when whole, and could be pounded 
into a paste whence paper could be made. The 
garments of the Aztecs were woven of the thread of 
the aloe, of cotton, and of hair ; but their most 
beautiful work was in the feather hangings, where 
the lovely tints of all the tropical birds were used 
to make exquisite pictures. Their houses were built 
round large courts, in which beautiful flowers were 




Aztec Warrior and Woman. 



72 Stories of American* History. 



grown. Their feasts, served in gold and silver dishes, 
were as regularly conducted and as ceremoniously 
as any in Europe. Mexico itself, the capital, was 
one of the most beautiful cities that ever existed. 
It stood on islands in a great salt lake, shut in with 
a great circle of mountains. Three broad causeways 
led to it; and the streets were some of them of water, 
some of land, some of them with footways bordering 
canals. Lovely gardens, trees, and flowers adorned 
it ; the numerous temples and the splendid palace and 
garden of the Emperor crowned it. 

In spite of their horrible religion, the Aztecs were 
a well-ordered nation, and loved poetry and art, and 
all that is graceful and beautiful. They had happy 
and peaceful homes, and just laws ; indeed, it is thought 
that two nations, one savage and the other gentle, had 
become blended into one ; and that the custom of 
offering fruits and flowers remained from a better form 
of worship, which had been overcome by the frightful 
custom of human sacrifices. 

The Aztecs had quantities of writings in their own 
picture fashion. Though most of these were de- 
stroyed, a history was copied from such as were spared. 
The process was to write the meaning of the symbols 
in the Mexican language with the letters of the 
alphabet. This copy was then translated into Spanish. 



The Aztec Empire. "j^^ 

From these records it is known that they had a long 
Hne of kings, some of whom had been very wise and 
just, as well as brave and magnificent. They were 
religious men, too, who thought much, as even the 
Greek philosophers did, of the hope that good and 
virtuous men may be blessed after their life here 
is over. 

Anahuac, at the arrival of Cortes, was divided into 
three kingdoms — Tezcuco, Tlascala, and Mexico. 
Tezcuco had the best and noblest kings, and had 
been the most powerful kingdom. The Tezcucan 
kings dwelt on the east shore of the great lake, oppo- 
site to the city of Mexico, and had had about three 
centuries of war and rivalry with the Mexicans, till, 
just before the Spaniards found their way to America, 
the last of the great and good Tezcucan kings, Neza- 
hualpilli, was overcome by fraud and force by his 
neighbor Montezuma, King of Mexico, and lost great 
part of his dominions. When the Tezcucan pined 
away and died, Montezuma took to himself the title of 
king over other kings, which the Spaniards translated 
" Emperor." It was he who was reigning in Anahuac, 
and at war with the Tlascalans, when Cortes set forth 
to find the great golden empire. 



CHAP. X.— THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO. 

, 1521. 

/xORTES was preceded by two adventurers in 
^^ Mexican discovery, Fernandes de Cordova and 
Juan de Grijalva. Each prepared the way for the 
next; and it was their reports of the wealth in 
gold which caused the more powerful expedition of 
Cortes to be fitted out. Grijalva coasted from Yucatan 
as far north as Panuco, in the department now called 
Vera Cruz. The first place at which Cortes landed 
was at the mouth of the river Grijalva, as it is 
sometimes called, in honor of that discoverer. It is 
now marked on the charts as the Rio de Tabasco, 
from the name of the district which it traverses. As 
the natives had shown a fierce disposition to repel 
their previous Spanish visitors, they came down in 
strong force to oppose Cortes. When the Spaniards 
fired their guns, the Indians threw dust in the air, 
that the Spaniards might not see the damage they 



The Conquest of Mexico. 75 

were doing. But victory was sure to be where there 
were horses and fire-arms. The Tabascans submitted, 
and brought Cortes twenty girls, as slaves, to crush 
their maize, and make bread of the flour. One of 
these girls was an Aztec chiefs daughter. She was 
christened Marina, and became a most useful and 
faithful interpreter to Cortes. Sailing farther along 
the coast, they landed at San Juan de Ulua, an island 
which commands the harbor of Vera Cruz, and which 
had been visited and named by Grijalva. Here, for 
the first time, they heard of Montezuma as a great 
emperor, far inland. He had sent messengers to ask 
what these strangers were doing on his coast. Cortes 
answered that they had been sent by their king to 
treat with Montezuma, and meant to see him. This, 
the messengers said, was impossible. But when Cortes 
insisted, they said they would send to their prince for 
an answer, and began drawing pictures of the Spaniards 
to send him. Whereupon Cortes had all his troops 
drawn out, caused his horsemen to make a grand 
charge upon the sands, and the cannon to be fired ; 
so that indeed they had some strange pictures to send. 
He also bade them tell Montezuma that he and his 
companions had a complaint of the heart which could 
only be cured by gold. Montezuma refused to see 
this stranger, but sent him presents that did but whet 



76 



Stories of AmericaiV' History. 



the appetite of all those who had that dangerous com- 
plaint of the heart, namely, a sum of gold and many 
other precious things. 

Cortes was absolutely resolved to make his way to 




Spaniards destroying an Aztec Idol. 



see the Emperor ; and that no one might be able to 
turn back, he ordered his ships to be burned. He had 



The Conquest of Mexico. jy 

founded a city, which he called Vera Cruz, where he 
left all that he did not want on his march under 
the charge of the weaker men. It was much in the 
favor of Cortes that the countries round the coast 
were held in subjection by the Mexicans, and hated 
them ; so even though they had begun by fighting 
against Cortes, they were willing to join with him 
against Montezuma as soon as they had felt his 
strength. The first thing Cortes always did was to 
stop the horrible human sacrifices, clear the temples 
of blood, set up a cross, and charge the priests to 
guard it, and then to make the people vassals to King 
Charles of Spain. 

Tlascala was a great republic, tributary to Monte- 
zuma. It had a large and beautiful capital, with a 
wall nine feet high and twenty broad, measuring six 
miles in length. The people became the allies of 
Cortes, and some thousands of them came on with 
him on the march to Mexico. There was much 
fighting on the way, but Cortes held on until he had 
reached the great causeway, and from the heights 
looked down into the great valley of Mexico. The 
sight of the wonderful city, full of gardens rising up 
from the lakes, was so marvelously and surpassingly 
beautiful that the soldiers stood still, and asked one 
another if they were awake, the scene was so like a 



78 



Stories of American History. 



dream, or like the enchanted castles and gardens they 
had read of in romances. 

Montezuma had found it vain to try to stop 
these strangers, so he had promised to receive their 
leader. Cortes, with all the splendor he could 




The Meeting of Cortes and Monieztwia. 



muster, rode to meet him at the gate, between rows 
of Mexican lords, who saluted the new-comer by 
laying their hands in the dust and then kissing them. 



The Conquest of Mexico, 79 

Montezuma stood leaning on the arms of his brother 
and nephew, wearing on his head plumes of the royal 
green which floated down his back. He had on gilded 
sandals, and a mantle rich with gold and precious 
stones, while over his head four nobles held a canopy, 
the ground-work of which was of green feathers, with 
the richest embroidery of gold, pearls, and precious 
stones in fringes and drops. Cortes, dismounting, 
advanced, and was received with princely courtesy. 
There was an exchange of presents, a feast, and a 
conference, with the Indian girl Marina for an inter- 
preter. Cortes explained the Christian Faith and the 
Divine Law, and tried to make Montezuma accept 
them. The Emperor was so grandly polite and courte- 
ous, and unwilling to contradict a guest, that the 
Spaniards hoped he was succeeding. But when the 
Emperor took Cortes to see his great temple, on the 
platform at the top of many stairs, the Spaniards were 
sickened and shocked. The place looked and smelt 
hke a slaughter-house; and before one idol lay five, 
before another three, human hearts, torn out that morn- 
ing. Cortes showed his horror, and tried to speak of 
better things ; but Montezuma was grieved at the dis- 
honor done to his gods, who, he said, gave him victory, 
wealth, good harvests, and all he needed, and deserved 
to have offerings made to them. To Cortes it seemed 



8o Stories of American. History. 

a. clear duty to win the country for Christ and for 
Spain. He did not trust the Aztecs, and he resolved 
to get their emperor into his own hands. There had 
been a little fight between the people he had left at 
Vera Cruz and their neighbors, and this he made an 
excuse for surprising Montezuma, and keeping him in 
the Spanish quarters as a hostage for his people. It 
was one of the most amazing acts of boldness ever 
done, but it succeeded. 

Montezuma was cowed, and finding his only chance 
of safety was to give his allegiance to Spain, he sent 
for his nobles, and called on them to consent. They 
wept bitterly, but gave way, and for some months 
Montezuma continued to be still their emperor, though 
closely watched by the Spaniards. New difficulties 
and dangers arose for Cortes. Velasquez, Governor 
of Cuba, had become his enemy, and sent out an expe- 
dition, under Pamfilo de Narvaez, to depose and arrest 
him. By fighting and defeating the army of Narvaez, 
and winning the soldiers to his cause, Cortes kept his 
command. Returning to Mexico, he found the Aztecs 
up in arms against the Spanish garrison. A massacre 
of the inhabitants while celebrating a feast had mad- 
dened them. The Spaniards were besieged in their 
quarters, and fearful encounters took place whenever 
they ventured forth. The destruction of a temple 



The Conquest of Mexico. 



8i 



which overlooked the Spanish quarters added to the 
fury of the Aztecs ; but from its upper stage the Mexi- 
cans had thrown arrows upon the Spaniards, and when 
a Spaniard was made prisoner, his countrymen had 
seen him dragged up the side of one of these temples 
to die a horrid death before the idols. As Montezuma 




Cortes destroying the Idols at Zempoalla. 



had professed allegiance to Spain, and was still in the 

hands of Cortes, he could call the rising of the Mexi- 
6 



82 Stories of American* History, 

cans a rebellion. He brought out the unfortunate 
prince to address the people. They listened for a little 
while, but then flung stones and shot arrows. Three 
struck Montezuma, and in a few days he died of grief, 
or of his wounds, the Spaniards having tried in vain to 
make him confess himself a Christian. 

The Spaniards were compelled to leave the city of 
Mexico, but made their retreat under great difficulty. 
A new king, by name Guatemozin, was set up, and 
Cortes had to besiege Mexico, and carry on a dreadful 
war, before, on the 13th of August, 152 1, he finally took 
the great lake city, and the Aztec Empire, with all its 
spoils of gold, silver, and pearls, was added to the realms 
of Spain. The city of Mexico withstood a siege of 
three months, in which uncounted thousands died by 
war and famine. Its conquest was effected by the aid 
of native allies of Spain, enemies of Mexico. The cap- 
ture of Guatemozin ended the resistance of his subjects. 
Three years later he was hanged by Cortes on a charge 
of conspiracy. So perished the last of the Aztec 
kings. The country thus conquered was named New 
Spain. 



CHAP. XL— THE CONVERSION OF 
MEXICO. 



1529- 

<S\ON FERNANDO CORTES, the man who had 
J-^ conquered Mexico, was great, both in patience 
and ability. However much he might be provoked, 
he never said a hasty word, though one vein in his 
forehead and another in his throat used to swell with 
wrath. He was a devout man after his fashion, reli- 
gious and loyal, who meant to work for the honor of 
God and the king ; and he sent at once for a bishop 
and clergy to convert the Aztecs, and hold service in 
the churches. And though he did hard and cruel things 
at times, it was always in the way of what he thought 
his duty. But there were ten plagues in New Spain 
which made terrible havoc of the Aztecs, and were thus 
counted up by a monk, who was a friend of Cortes : 
(i) small-pox ; (2) the slaughter in the war ; (3) famine 
after the war ; (4) Indian and Negro overseers ; (5) 



84 Stories of Americaji' History. 

the heavy tribute demanded from the Indians ; (6) the 
gold mines; (7) the rebuilding of Mexico; (8) the 
making of slaves to work in the mines ; (9) the car- 
riage of metals from the mines; (10) the quarrels of 
the Spaniards. 

The false accusers had gone home to Spain, and 
there was terrible jealousy of Cortes. A judge was 
sent out to hold a court and try him ; but after waiting 
seventeen days not a single charge of any act of dis- 
honesty, selfishness, or disloyalty was brought. How- 
ever, he went over to see the King of Spain, who had 
by this time been elected as the Emperor Charles V. 
All falsehoods about him were confuted as soon as the 
Emperor actually saw and heard him ; and he went 
back to Mexico as Captain-General of the army, though 
not as Governor. He took a wife back with him, and 
obtained large estates in Mexico. The great Mexican 
and Tlascalan chiefs and land-owners, who chose to 
make friends with the Spaniards and become Christians, 
were not deprived of their property ; and the Aztec 
race did not melt away, as the Indians of the isles had 
done, but a mixed population grew up — Spanish, In- 
dian, and Negro, mingled together in strange ways. 

All this time the great desire of Cortes was to find 
the way over the mountains to the southern sea that 
Vasco Nunez de Balboa had seen. The tribes in the 



The Conversion of Mexico. 85 

mountains, who had been in the fear of the great 
Emperors of Mexico, offered submission ; and through 
their states the Pacific Ocean was reached in 1522, 
about one thousand miles above the spot where Balboa 
had first beheld it. Guatemala, which means in Aztec, 
" the place of decayed wood," a country as civilized as 
Mexico, situate on the western coast, received and 
submitted to Pedro de Alvarado, an officer of Cortes. 
Twelve Dominican and twelve Franciscan friars were 
sent out from Spain to attend to the conversion of the 
Aztecs. They were received with great respect by 
Cortes, who bent his knee and kissed their hands, 
while the Indians, amazed at his condescension to 
barefooted men, in rough serge, with ropes around 
their waists, cried out, " Motolinia," which means 
" poor." As poverty is said to have been the bride of 
St. Francis, one of these brethren was so delighted 
with the name that he took it for his own, and was 
ever after called Father Toribio MotoHnia. He spent 
his life in teaching, catechising, and converting the 
Aztecs, and is said to have baptized four hundred 
thousand of them. Another was a Fleming, Peter of 
Ghent, who thought himself unworthy to be anything 
but a lay brother, but who spent fifty years in kind and 
gentle training of the Mexicans. He built with their 
help a large school, where he was the first to teach 



86 Stories of American' History. 

them to read, write, play on musical instruments, paint 
and carve like the Flemings at home. He could 
preach if no priest was at hand, and he persuaded many 
an Aztec to destroy his idols. He was altogether a 
man of such influence that the archbishop once said, 
" I am not Archbishop of Mexico, but Brother Peter 
of Ghent is." In his old age he thought it a tempta- 
tion of the evil one that he felt the yearnings of home- 
sickness, and longed above all to hear his native Flem- 
ish : but he staid at his post in Mexico all his Hfe, 
and died there. 

Grievous deeds were done by the greedy Spaniards, 
and suffered by the natives, as the conquest of Mexico 
was followed by that of Central America. But, on the 
whole, things were not so shocking as in Hispaniola 
and Cuba. Las Casas had come to the mainland, and 
so testified against the violence of the Spaniards, that 
for some years he was forbidden to preach. He also 
published a treatise, in which he declared, first, that 
the Indians ought to be made Christians by love and 
good teaching, not by slavery and violence ; and, next, 
that even if they refused, that did not make it right to 
make war on them and enslave them. He was laughed 
at by the Spaniards, and told that his plans of persua- 
sion were mere folly. The Spaniards derisively chal- 
lenged him to try. 



The Converstojt of Mexico, Sy 

Now there was, near Guatemala, a district where the 
people were so fierce that the Spaniards had named it 
the Land of War, for they had three times been driven 
back from it. Las Casas actually signed and sealed an 
agreement with the Emperor Charles V, that he would 
bring this place to be Christian and to submit to him, 
if no soldiers, or colonists, or any other Spaniards, 
except those connected with the Government, were 
allowed to enter the country for five years. 

The first thing Las Casas did was to choose some 
good Dominicans. With fasts and prayers they pre- 
pared themselves. Then they drew up, in verse, in 
the language of the country, an account of the Crea- 
tion, the Fall, the Redemption, the work of the Holy 
Ghost, and the Last Judgment. They taught these 
poems to some Christian Indian peddlers, who used to 
carry wares into the land of war every year, and who 
sang them with all their hearts. The people listened, 
and the peddlers then told of the holy lives of the good 
Fathers who had taught them, and could explain more. 
So well did these native missionaries do their work, 
that a young chief actually besought that the Fathers 
would come to him. Father Luis Canea, who knew 
the language best, was sent, and was welcomed with 
arches of triumph, flowers strewn, and every honor. 
A church was built for his ministrations, and chiefs 



88 



Stories of A mericaii . History . 



and people came in. With great difficulty the pious 
Fathers did contrive to keep out the worst violence of 
the Spaniards, and the country which had once been 
the land of war, was named Vera Paz, or True Peace, 
and the Indians there have ever since been a Christian, 
peaceful, flourishing race. 




CHAP. XIL— THE INCAS OF PERU. 

1524. 

s\/NOTHER Spanish soldier, unfortunately of very 
-^^ different mold from Cortes, set forth on another 
quest for the land of gold, following in the track of 
Vasco Nunez de Balboa. This man was Francisco 
Pizarro, who had already made one of numerous ad- 
venturous parties in journeys of discovery ; and was 
fully imbued with that horrid Spanish notion, which 
the priests and monks were always resisting, that 
heathen Indians deserved no better treatment than 
brute beasts. 

The country to which he was bent on making his 
way was Peru, which lies on the western side of South 
America, sloping upward from the Pacific Ocean, to 
where the Andes, the " Giants of the Western Star," 
rise up into thin air and cold, beyond where man, beast, 
or plant can live. The people there thought them- 
selves the Children of the Sun, whom they worshiped 



90 Stories of American^ History. 

above all ; but not with human sacrifices, like the 
Aztecs. They were a much more gentle people, and 
their principal sacrifice on the chief feast-day was only 
a black lamb. They thought the moon was the sun's 
wife, the planet Venus his page ; and they had hosts 
of other deities, whose golden images filled their great 
temples. There were great colleges of priests, and 
of virgins dedicated to the sun. The first studied 
astronomy, and offered the sacrifices and led the 
worship ; the maidens prepared the sacred bread that 
was given out to the people at the feasts, sang songs, 
and led dances in honor of the sun. The prince of 
the country was styled the Inca, and was supposed to 
be the living representative of the sun, his forefather. 
He could only marry in his own family. The Inca 
was a sacred person, ruling with such wise, fatherly 
care, that as we read of old Peru, in the Commentaries 
of Garcilasso de la Vega, we can not help thinking 
that he could only have heard the best side of the 
story. De la Vega was born in Peru, and his mother 
belonged to the Inca family. 

There was no money in Peru, no private estates. 
Everything belonged to the Inca, as Child of the Sun ; 
all the land, the metals, and the flocks of llamas, 
guanacos, and alpacas, which served as horses, cattle, 
and sheep. Every year the land was freshly portioned 



The Incas of Peru, g i 

out, according to the number of each family, with a 
reserve for the sun and the Inca. The rent was to be 
personal service paid to the Inca, in tilling his lands 
and those of the sun. Their produce maintained the 
priests, and supplied the sick and helpless, and, if 
there were any remainder, it was stored up against 
case of scarcity. The animals were distributed in 
like manner, and their wool was given out by the 
Inca every two years, to supply the nation with 
clothing. Some of the tribute of labor was em- 
ployed in building the temples and palaces of the 
great city of Cuzco ; and some in making and keep- 
ing up wonderful roads all over the country, in the 
heights of the Andes, which were crossed by strings 
of llamas, bearing gold and silver in baskets on their 
backs. 

The country was like one large family, and, as there 
was no private property, stealing was unknown. Each 
household helped its neighbors to cultivate the ground, 
and public feasts were held every two or three 
months, to which every one was invited, and where 
there were songs and dances. Officers were sent forth 
by the Inca to watch that no one was idle, down to the 
child of five years old; and each householder was 
commanded to keep his doors open when he was at 
dinner, that the royal inspectors might look in and see 



92 Stories of A7nericaii History. 

whether the family were behaving properly, and living 
according to their rank. 

The Peruvians kept their records by a number of 
cords, which they called quipus. The color of threads 
in a quipu, and the patterns in which they were knotted 
together, had meanings given them, which made them 
answer the purpose of writing. In them the laws and 
history of the kingdom were preserved, and also some 
poetry. The Peruvians seem to have acted plays at 
their great festivals ; but they had not, on the whole, 
made so much progress in science and literature as the 
Aztecs. 

The last Inca who had reigned before the Spaniards 
found Peru had conquered the province of Quito, and 
had made a most wonderful road along the mountains 
from thence to Cuzco. He had married a daughter of 
the lord of Quito, and had a son, whom he named 
Atahualpa, or Sweet Valor. But this youth had not 
equal rights with the elder son, Huascar, or the Golden 
Chain, whose mother was one of the Daughters of the 
Sun, the only right wives for the Inca. 

Atahualpa was, however, a favorite with the people, 
and obtained his grandfather's country of Quito on his 
father's death. Huascar took up arms against him, but 
was defeated by the chief general of Quito, Quizquiz, 
who made him prisoner, and put to death a great 



The Incas of Peru, 93 

number of the royal race of Cuzco, with a barbarity 
which does not look as if the Peruvians were quite as 
gentle as they have been represented. 

It was at this time, when Peru was thus disturbed 
by the quarrel between the brothers, that Francisco 
Pizarro, a brave, rough man, unable even to write his 
name, agreed with his friend, Diego de Almagro, to 
seek for the riches of the south ; and, with a school- 
master named Fernando de Luque, they induced the 
Governor of Panama, Pedrarias, to let them buy a ship, 
and enlist men for the expedition. In 1524, Pizarro, 
with eighty men and some horses, set forth in one ship 
and two canoes, coasting along southward, and suffer- 
ing terribly for want of food ; so that they named one 
spot where they landed the Port of Hunger. Almagro 
followed with another ship, and found them in a 
wretched state. But they were wonderfully patient 
and resolute, and would not give up their attempt — 
especially as some prisoners they had made told them 
of the land of gold in the mountains. At last, after 
untold sufferings and labors, they became quite sure of 
the existence of the great empire, and that all that was 
wanting was the means of winning it. A second ex- 
pedition confirmed these impressions, and also con- 
vinced Pizarro that the needed means and authority 
must be sought in Spain. 



CHAP. XIII.— THE CONQUEST OF PERU. 

1532. 

T7(rANCISCO PIZARRO went home to Spain, 
-L made his way to court, and toid his story of the 
golden kingdom in the mountains. Nothing in those 
days seemed to be too wonderful to be true. The old 
device of Spain had been two pillars, representing the 
pillars of Hercules — namely, the rocks on either side 
of the Straits of Gibraltar — with the motto, Ne Fhts 
Ultra, " no more beyond." Charles V left out the ne, 
so that his badge was Plus Ultra, or, " more beyond " ; 
and the ensign of Hispaniola was a horse leaping off a 
rock into infinite space. 

No doubt crossed any one's mind as to the right of 
attacking these distant kings ; or rather, the text giving 
the Messiah the heathen for His inheritance was mis- 
interpreted to mean that His supposed representative, 
the Pope, could give away heathen empires to Christian 
kings ; nor was there a thought of the cruelty of send- 



The Co7t quest of Peru. 95 

ing a fierce, hard, ignorant man to be a conqueror and 
ruler. So Pizarro had the government of Peru granted 
to him. The schoolmaster, Fernando de Luque, was 
to be Bishop, and Almagro, Judge, or Adelantado. 
Pizarro's four brothers sold their Spanish lands and 
sailed out to share with him ; but altogether, when he 
had come out from Spain and collected his whole forces 
at Panama, he had only three ships, thirty-seven horses, 
and one hundred and eighty-three men. The use of 
the horses was much more to amaze and terrify the 
natives than for actual fighting. With this small party 
he set forth to win an empire on Innocents' Day, the 
28th of December, 1530. 

The point for which Pizarro aimed on his third 
voyage was Tumbez, near the entrance of the Bay of 
Guayaquil, which he had visited before, and where he 
had made acquaintance with the Indians, showing them 
his power and receiving supplies from Panama. He 
was obliged to land some sixty miles to the north by 
head winds, and disembarking his troops marched along 
the shore, suflfering great hardships. Reaching the 
Bay of Guayaquil, he occupied the isle of Nuna, where 
his ships rejoined him. On the isle of Nuna and on 
the coast of Tumbez he remained over a year, and was 
joined by Fernando de Soto with re-enforcements. 
From the Indians of Tumbez he now heard of the war 



96 



Stories of American. History, 



between the two Incas. He sent a deputation to Ata- 
hualpa, who was encamped near the city of Caxamarca. 



/ hK\ 1} /. />\ 




Pizarro and his Men. 



The deputation returned with an envoy, bringing 
presents from the Inca, who seems to have wished to 
secure the assistance of the new-comers against his 
brother Huascar. Without any opposition, Pizarro 
marched on to the city of Caxamarca, which he found 
deserted. He took possession of the great square, 



The Conqtiest of Peru. 97 

and thence sent Fernando de Soto and his own brother 
Hernando, with about thirty horsemen, to Atahualpa's 
camp. 

They found the Inca in his quarters, the only person 
seated, and wearing on his head what served for a 
crown, namely, a cap with an enormous tassel of fine 
crimson wool, like silk, which hung down over his eyes, 
so that he had to lift it up when he wished to see. He 
behaved with much pride and stateliness, and said he 
understood the Spaniards were no great warriors, but 
that they might go and help his men to subdue a 
stubborn race of Indians four miles off. He promised 
to come and see Pizarro in his camp in the square of 
the city of Caxamarca. On the i6th of November, 
1532, the Inca came. Most hkely he meant to sur- 
round and capture the strangers, and secure their arms 
and horses, for he brought with him five or six thousand 
men, apparently unarmed, but with clubs, slings, and 
bags of stone under their cotton dresses. However, 
he himself came peacefully, in a litter of plated silver 
and gold, adorned with paroquets' feathers. Pizarro 
had placed all his men, except about twenty whom he 
reserved as his suite or staff, under cover in the de- 
serted buildings, apparently barracks, which opened 
upon the square. When the Inca halted, Pizarro sent 
a priest to him to expound, briefly, the whole Christian 
7 



98 Stories of American History. 

doctrine ; from which the priest deduced the fact that 
it was the duty of the Inca at once to submit himself 
to the Pope and the King of Spain. An Indian inter- 
preter made such a rendering of the discourse as he 
could, and some talk followed, in the course of which 
the Inca asked for the breviary which the priest held 
in his hand. After glancing at it he threw it down, 
and sharply complained of the mischief the Spaniards 
had done in their advance. Standing up in his litter 
he made signs, and spoke to his people. He was 
thought to be calling them to the attack, and Pizarro, 
with his followers sprang forward with the Spanish 
war-cry. It was responded to by the concealed soldiers, 
who rushed into the square. Whether they were armed 
or not the Indians made no resistance, except im- 
mediately round the royal person. The bearers of the 
litter were killed, and the Inca, with all his clothes torn 
off in the struggle, was dragged from under the litter 
and made prisoner. A terrible slaughter was made of 
the Indians, but the only wound on the other side was 
a slight scratch received by Pizarro, from one of his 
own men as the conqueror was defending the life of 
Atahualpa, whom he preferred to take alive. 

The plunder of the camp of the Peruvians was 
enormous, and while Pizarro kept Atahualpa prisoner, 
Spaniards were sent out to seize and rifle the great 



The Conquest of Peru, 99 

cities and temples of Peru. One hundred and sixty 
men had in fact subdued a warHke nation of eleven 
millions, by the seizure of their chief. Atahualpa was 
at first kept as Montezuma had been, and allowed to 
see his courtiers, and to send out orders. Meanwhile 
his armies had conquered his brother Huascar, and 
made him prisoner. It is not certain that Atahualpa 
actually commanded that his brother should be put to 
death, but it was done, and, though he seemed to 
mourn, the Spaniards thought his grief was only 
feigned. An enormous ransom in gold was to be paid 
by him, and the metal was to be piled on the floor of 
an apartment about twenty feet square till it reached a 
line nine feet from the floor. While the ransom was 
yet incomplete, it was found expedient to divide what 
had been received. A fifth was sent to the King of 
Spain, and the rest was shared among the soldiers. 
Almagro and a fresh troop of three hundred men, who 
reached Caxamarca about this time, found that they 
were not by any means to share on equal terms with 
the first comers. 

They therefore did not want the collection of the 
ransom to go on, and wished to be able to plunder for 
themselves. So they were bent on the Inca's death, 
and there were continual reports that he was secretly 
calling on his people to raise an army and deliver 



lOO Stories of American History. 

him. This was the natural thing for him to do, but the 
Spaniards called it treachery. One night two Indians 
came in, and said that a great force was marching on 
Caxamarca. Thereupon the Spaniards decided upon 
instantly trying the unhappy Peruvian king, according 
to the form of their own Spanish law. Of course they 
convicted him, and then they sentenced him to death, 
and that by fire, unless he would become a Christian. 
It was put to the vote whether this cruel sentence 
should be carried out, and among four hundred 
Spaniards, there were only fifty to vote for the life of 
their captive. Atahualpa loudly complained of the 
injustice and wickedness of the sentence, but in vain. 
He was led out into the great square of Caxamarca, 
and there, when he saw the stake and fagots, con- 
sented to be baptized.'"' This was done, and Juan de 
Atahualpa, by which name he was baptized, was then 
bound to the stake and strangled. He was buried 
with all the honors of a Spaniard and a Christian. 

The royal tassel was giv^en to one of his brothers, 
who was in the hands of the Spaniards, but who, 
before long, pined and died of grief, at the hardness 
with which he was treated, and the miseries of his 

* August 29th. This day is sometimes kept as the day of the 
beheading or martyrdom of John the Baptist. For this reason 
the Inca was baptized Juan or John. 



The Conquest of Peru, loi 

country. Cuzco, the capital city, was entered with 
Httle difficulty, and there the Spaniards perfectly 
gorged themselves with plunder. Above all, they 
ravaged the great Temple of the Sun, where there was 
a huge disk of the sun himself This was seized by a 
common soldier, and gambled away in a single night's 
play. There were also figures of men, women, animals, 
and plants, such as Indian corn, made in solid gold, of 
beautiful workmanship. All alike were the prey of 
these rude, ignorant men, who melted them down, and 
gambled and reveled with the cost. And as to the 
cruelties suffered by the people, they surpass all 
thought or words. 




CHAP. XIV.— THE CIVIL WAR IN PERU. 

1535- 

^IXONORS and rewards came forth from Spain 
■^-^ to the conquerors of this new empire. Pizarro 
was created a marquis ; and Diego de Almagro a 
marshal, and governor of all the country to the south ; 
while Valverde, the chaplain, was to be Bishop of 
Cuzco. While crowds of Spaniards flocked to Peru, 
soldiers, sailors, and adventurers of all kinds, to enjoy 
the spoil, a new city was founded by Pizarro, on the 
coast. He called it Ciudad de los Reyes, or City of the 
Kings, after the three kings or Magi, because it was 
founded on the festival of the Epiphany, 1535, but 
it took and kept the name of Lima. There was 
much dispute between Almagro and the brothers of 
Pizarro, who held the government of Cuzco, as to 
whether that city belonged to Almagro's jurisdic- 
tion or that of Pizarro. An agreement was reached 
as the parties were on the eve of blows, and Al- 



The Civil War in Peru. 103 

magro set out to subdue Chili, the country to the 
south. 

Manco, the brother of Huascar, had appealed to 
Pizarro as the rightful heir to the throne of the Incas; 
and the Spaniards went through the ceremony of his 
coronation, and presented him to his countrymen as 
their future sovereign. But he was really held in a 
sort of captivity, and demanded the powers as well as 
the title of Inca. Making his escape from the 
Spaniards, he put himself at the head of his people, 
and made desperate attempts to free the land from the 
white men, who were cruelly oppressing the whole 
country even beyond the wont of their nation, and 
destroying the temples of their gods. Manco had two 
large gold vessels full of the native wine brought 
before him, and called on all who tasted it to pledge 
themselves that not a Christian should be left alive in 
Peru. 

Then he attacked Cuzco, where the Spaniards found 
themselves in very great danger, and there was fighting 
from street to street and house to house, but at last the 
assailants were beaten off with terrible slaughter by 
Pizarro's three brothers. Manco surrounded Cuzco 
with Indian troops, and the Spaniards were besieged 
there for several months. Sorties were made, and 
there raged a terrible war in which Spaniards and 



I04 Stories of American History, 

Indians killed each other whenever they met ; and 
among those who fell was Juan Pizarro, one of the 
brothers. Manco Inca withdrew to the mountainous 
districts, where he could elude capture, repel assaults, 
and reject overtures at treaties ; now hold parleys and 
then could descend and harass the Spaniards. One 
of the Spanish visitors at his camp, named Gomez 
Perez, who was teaching him to play at bowls, on 
some dispute about the game, threw a bowl at his 
head, which caused his death, thus ending the dynasty 
of the Incas. 

During these disturbances Almagro came back 
from Chili. He had made a miserable journey through 
the frozen passes of the Andes, and had met with no 
empire and no gold. So he persuaded himself and his 
men that Cuzco was part of the government which 
the Emperor had assigned to him. He came to the 
walls, and summoned Fernando Pizarro to give it up 
to him. Of course, Fernando sent down to Francisco, 
the marquis, at Lima, for orders ; but before instruc- 
tions could arrive, Almagro crept into the town by 
night and filled it with his men. Fernando and Gon- 
zalo Pizarro defended themselves in the palace of the 
Incas, till it was set on fire and the roof began to 
fall in on them, when they yielded and were put in 
chains. Almagro then prepared to descend to the 



The Civil War in Peru, 105 

sea-coast, and establish a port for himself. He took 
Fernando Pizarro with him, leaving Gonzalo under 
guard in Cuzco. On his march he learned that Gon- 
zalo had escaped and joined his brother Francisco, at 
Lima. A correspondence now took place between 
Francisco Pizarro and Almagro ; an interview was ap- 
pointed to be held at Mala, and the dispute to be sub- 
mitted for arbitration to a single umpire, Fray Fran- 
cisco de Bovadilla. The two old partners met, but 
not in the most affectionate manner. Meanwhile it 
was discovered that Gonzalo Pizarro was moving on 
Mala with a body of troops. The conference had be- 
come very like a quarrel, when one of the cavaliers 
present gave Almagro notice by singing from an old 

ballad : 

" Time it is, Sir Knight, I say, 
Time it is thou wert away." 

Another brought a horse to the door, on which Al- 
magro mounted and galloped off. The marquis de- 
clared that he did not know of his brother's advance. 
Almagro did not believe him ; and when Fray Bova- 
dilla decided that Cuzco must be surrendered to Pi- 
zarro until a scrutiny should determine the question, 
and that Fernando Pizarro should be set at liberty on 
condition of his leaving the country, the Almagro party 
declared that it was an unjust judgment, and that Al- 



io6 Stories of Ame^^ican History, 

^__ • . 

magro should not submit to it. So furious were the 
threats of Almagro's men, and so great was the dan- 
ger of Fernando, that Francisco Pizarro conceded that 
Cuzco should remain in the hands of Almagro, and 
Fernando was liberated. The Pizarros and Almagro 
held an exchange of civiHties, the agreement was rati- 
fied, and Almagro was persuaded that a cordial settle- 
ment had been made. But the marquis instantly set 
about preparations for renewal of the war. He notified 
Almagro that the treaty was at an end ; he persuaded 
his brother Fernando to break his pledge to leave 
the country, and gave him command of the army. 
Fernando Pizarro marched to recover Cuzco. He met 
the army of Almagro at a place called Salinas, or salt- 
pits, near the city. There was a fierce battle in which 
Almagro was defeated, the city was taken, and Alma- 
gro made prisoner. He was thrown into prison, brought 
to trial, and put to death on the 8th of July, 1538. 

Francisco, the marquis, it is said by his friends, did 
not know what was going on in Cuzco till all was 
over ; and wept bitterly for the old friend who had 
turned into a foe. Fernando soon afterward went home 
to Spain ; and there, being called to account by the 
relatives of Almagro, was imprisoned for twenty-three 
years. He was at last released, and lived on his own 
estate to be a hundred years old. 



The Civil War in Peru, 107 

The Marquis Francisco Pizarro was for the pres- 
ent undisputed governor, for Ahnagro's son and other 
friends were waiting for a judge from Spain, who they 
expected would take vengeance for the marshal. Pi- 
zarro sent his master of the horse, Pedro de Valdivia, 
to subdue Chili ; and the names of a province, a river, 
and a sea-poit town still witness to the success of that 
leader. Gonzalo Pizarro was sent to act against the 
natives of Charcas, and there won an exceedingly rich 
country, where the mines of Potosi were afterward 
discovered. He was appointed Governor of Quito, 
beyond which he was told there was a country full of 
cinnamon-trees. In search of this he set out with 
three hundred Spaniards and four thousand Indians. 
They crossed the mountains through frightful snow 
and ice, and at last arrived at a province called Sumaco, 
where they did not find good trees, and where they 
are said to have been very cruel to the Indians. Push- 
ing on eastward, they came to a perfect net-work of 
rivers, with marshy country between them ; and won- 
derful trees, creepers, and ferns through which they had 
to cut their way. At last they stopped and built them- 
selves a bark, which carried the sick and the baggage 
down the river Coca, while the rest went along the 
bank, cutting their way with hatchets. After two 
months, when they were almost starved, they came to 



io8 Stories of American History. 

some Indians, whose language the Peruvians under- 
stood enough to know that they said that this river 
joined another very large one ten days off, and that 
there would be plenty of food. Gonzalo therefore re- 
solved to send the bark down the river, with a brave 
captain, Francisco de Orellana, and to wait himself for 
its return. 

In three days, going with the stream, Orellana came 
to the junction of the Coca and the Napo, but he found 
no food ; and as he declared he should be a year forc- 
ing his way back up the rapid current, he persuaded his 
men, not without difficulty, to abandon their comrades 
to their fate, and go on down the river till it reached 
the sea. Only two men, a priest and a knight named 
Sanchen de Vargas, were faithful enough to refuse, and 
were left behind to perish in the forest. Orellana safely 
reached the sea, having made his way down the mighty 
flood called the Maranon, which has taken the name 
of the Amazon, because he saw some women with 
bows and arrows on the banks. It was in 1541 that 
this traitor was the first to cross the continent. Gon- 
zalo, after waiting long for him to come back, followed 
the course of the Coca down to its junction with the 
Napo. There they found young Vargas, who told 
them the course Orellana had taken. The party then 
turned back, and struggled through horrible miseries 



The Civil War in Peru, 109 

to Peru again. The return march occupied more than 
a year. When, half naked, sick, and starved, the sur- 
vivors of the expedition, less than half, reached Quito, 
it was to hear that Francisco Pizarro had been mur- 
dered in his own house in Lima, by conspirators, friends 
of Almagro, on the 26th of June, 1541, after defending 
himself bravely. 

A judge named Vaca de Castro had arrived from 
Spain just before the death of Pizarro, with a commis- 
sion to assist the marquis in tranquillizing the country, 
and in the event of the death of Pizarro to succeed 
him. He had not entered upon his duties, or even 
reached Lima, when the assassination took place. But 
he instantly assumed the direction of matters, civil and 
military, conquered the adherents of the son of Alma- 
gro, who had risen in arms, and executed that young 
man with others, his associates. He was an upright, 
honest man, and Gonzalo Pizarro consented to lay 
aside all further thought of revenge or ambition, and 
retired to the estate near Potosi which his brother had 
assigned to him. 







p 


IS 




^ 


i 


^M 




1 






CE£ 










' ""' " " '" "' " '" " '" '" '" "' '"^ 



CHAP. XV. 



PROTECTION 
INDIANS. 



FOR THE 



1542— 1566. 

/TVHE poor Peruvians, once so rich and happy, had 
-L suffered grievously among all the wars of their 
conquerors. The good Las Casas, the friend of the 
Indians, went home to Spain to plead their cause with 
the Emperor ; and a set of rules were authorized for 
their protection in all the Spanish colonies. These 
were called the " New Laws." The repartimiento of 
Indians was not to pass to a man's heirs at his death, 
but it was to go to the king, which meant release. 
No repartimiento was to be held by any bishop, abbot, 
or officer of the crown ; all lands were to be forfeited 
by those who had been concerned in rebellion, and 
no personal slavery was to be exacted from the In- 
dians. 

Good and humane governors were chosen to en- 
force these laws in the isles, in Mexico, and in Peru. 



Frotectio7i for the Indians. iii 

In Hispaniola, however, there was hardly an Indian 
left alive ; and Negro slavery was fast coming in, and 
it was much the same in Cuba and Jamaica. On the 
continent, the Spaniards thought the New Laws the 
height of injustice ; and when the new governor ar- 
rived in Mexico, they had nearly resolved to go out 
and meet him in mourning. He found that if he en- 
deavored to carry out the New Laws there would 
certainly be a rebellion which he could not repress; 
and he sent letters back to represent the matter to the 
Emperor. 

In Peru, Vaca de Castro, whose wise measures are 
related in the last chapter, was succeeded by Blasco 
Nunez Vela. When the new viceroy arrived at Lima, 
the first thing he saw was a placard : "Him who 
comes to thrust out of my estate I shall thrust out of 
the world." Vela was not terrified, but very angry, 
and he was determined to carry out his orders. He 
did hasty deeds, and made many enemies, who all 
went over to join Gonzalo Pizarro, making him the 
head of a rebelHon against the New Laws and their 
enforcement. Gonzalo procured the support of the 
people as Captain-General of Peru ; and Blasco Nunez 
was compelled either to surrender his authority or 
to assert it by force of arms. He was hunted down, 
defeated, and killed, an old personal enemy causing 



112 Stories of American History, 

his head to be struck off even while he was dying of 
his wounds. Gonzalo Pizarro remained Governor of 
Peru, hoping to be confirmed in his power by the 
Emperor. 

A lawyer priest named Pedro de la Gasca was 
appointed to bring Peru into order. He bore a con- 
ciliatory message from the Emperor directing Pizarro 
to co-operate with him in restoring order. Pizarro 
refused to receive the imperial clemency, and raised 
the standard of rebellion. The only way of reaching 
Peru was, then, to cross the Isthmus and sail from 
Panama ; and Gonzalo had plenty of time to prepare. 
He had nine hundred Spaniards who were ready to 
join with him in fighting for the Province. He 
gained one great victory ; but after that he was de- 
feated again and again, and forced to yield himself a 
prisoner. He was tried, found guilty of treason, and 
executed in the year 1548. Two of his brothers had 
before died deaths of violence. The other of the four 
was in prison in Spain. The great conquest had 
brought little good to the conqueror and his family. 
Bloodshed brought on bloodshed, and the death of 
Atahualpa was visited on them. 

Gasca had put down rebellion from Panama to 
Chili, and had an enormous spoil in his hands, includ- 
ing the newly discovered mines of Potosi — the richest 



Protection for the India7is. 113 

silver mines in the world. All the lands were to be 
redistributed ; and his arrangements, which were meant 
to be merciful and just, raised in some directions a 
spirit of discontent and some disorder. But the mu- 
tinous spirits were appeased or vanquished, and the 
authority of the King of Spain was at last firmly 
established about the time that Charles V abdicated, 
and Philip II became King of Spain in 1555. 

The Peruvians accepted the Christian faith, and the 
church was endowed with great splendor. Indeed, 
the clergy deserved all praise for the steadfast efforts 
they made for the protection of the Indian races ; and 
it is owing to their constant witness against cruelty, 
and appeals to the sovereign against the wickedness 
of the colonists, that there is still a considerable native 
population in Peru. 

Las Casas was offered the bishopric of Cuzco, but 
would not accept it. However, when he was offered 
the bishopric of Chiapa, the chief of the Dominican 
Order insisted on his taking it, since otherwise there 
would be no one to see that the New Laws were 
carried out, and the Indians saved from oppression. 
Chiapa is that portion of Central America which lies 
south of the peninsula of Yucatan, and it had been 
settled by Spaniards who hated Las Casas beyond 
all measure. There was hardly a white layman in 



114 Stories of American History. 

the New World who did not look on this good man 
as his enemy, and think that the notion of saving 
Indians from slavery was as absurd as declaring that 
oxen and horses ought to be free. If he went out of 
the capital, Ciudad Real, they closed the gates against 
him ; they fought against him, abused him, tried to 
starve him, and threatened him ; but all this was vain 
against one who lived like the poorest of monks, and 
would have been glad to die as a martyr. He held his 
ground till he had set up various convents of Domini- 
cans, who were sure to protect the Indians; and he 
only licensed as confessors men who would only give 
absolution to those who abstained from wanton injus- 
tice and cruelty to the natives. Even the vv^ildest and 
fiercest Spaniard thought with horror of going unab- 
solved, and thus these confessors really were able to 
prevent much cruelty. 

There was to be a great synod of the clergy at 
Mexico, and thither Las Casas went to attend it. But 
the news of his coming raised such a tumult among the 
Spaniards, who hated him for hindering their cruelties, 
and interfering with their gains, that the Government 
bade him wait till men's minds were calmed down. 
However, he came safely in, and the synod was lield. 
There four great rules were laid down : First, that 
heathen kings had as much right to their lands as 



Protection for the Indians. 1 1 5 

Christians ; second, that the Pope had given the New 
World to the kings of Spain, not to make them richer, 
but that the Faith might be spread ; third, that the 
Indians were not to be despoiled of their lands or 
riches ; fourth, that the kings of Spain were bound to 
pay the expenses of missions to them. These were 
excellent decisions, and Las Casas set out to carry 
them to Spain. He never returned, finding he could 
do more for the Indians, by pleading their cause with 
the king, than by struggling with the colonists. 

He did so with effect. Once, when Philip II 
needed money, he was told that, if he would do away 
with the claim of the Crown to all a man's Indians at 
his death, each colonist would pay largely. But, on 
the showing of Las Casas that this meant making them 
slaves forever, he refused. Tributes were laid upon 
the Indians, and they underwent much harshness and 
ferocious cruelty ; but the great Las Casas saved them 
from absolute slavery. The bishops, priests, and fri- 
ars watched over them, and hindered the Spaniards 
from the horrors they had practiced in Hispaniola and 
Cuba ; and thus the Indian race was saved from utter 
extinction in Mexico and Peru, and became Christian. 

Las Casas lived chiefly in a convent in Spain, al- 
ways watching to hinder any measure which would 
bear hardly on the natives. He wrote a history of the 



ii6 



Stories of American History, 



Indians, and, when ninety years old, a treatise on 
Peru. Two years later he came to Madrid to beg the 
king to give the people in Guatemala a court of justice 
of their own. The journey was too much for him, and 
he died at ninety-two years of age at Madrid, in 1566, 
leaving a noble name behind him. 




CHAP. XVL— ENGLISH NORTH AMERI- 
CAN DISCOVERIES. 



1524— 1580. 

vV/LL the discoveries in the New World had 
■^-^ hitherto remained in the possession of Spain, 
except Brazil. By the demarkation line of the Pope 
that country belonged to Portugal, and was claimed 
under the accidental discovery of Cabral, in 1500. 
The boundaries of Brazil, as arranged by treaty be- 
tween Portugal and Spain, were the Amazon on the 
north and the Rio de la Plata on the south. Subse- 
quent treaties varied the boundaries, especially on the 
west. As the valuable mines of Brazil were not dis- 
covered until a century later, there was the less reason 
for dispute. In 1580 Philip II of Spain claimed the 
crown of Portugal, and annexed that kingdom to 
Spain. 

In 1524 Francis I of France, protesting that he 
" did not think that God had created these new coun- 



ii8 Stories of A7nerican History. 

tries only for Spain," authorized an exploring expedi- 
tion in behalf of French interests. The commander 
was Giovanni Verazzani, a Florentine. He coasted the 
northern continent from the tract now known as the 
CaroHnas up to Nova Scotia, and took possession of 
it under the name of New France. The disturbed 
condition of France prevented the immediate further 
prosecution of discovery. Ten years later, Jacques 
Cartier made his first voyage to the northern portion 
of the continent. A second was made immediately 
after his return, and a third in 1541. These voyages 
accomplished little but geographical discovery. 

In 1555 a party of French refugee Reformers 
attempted a settlement in Rio Janeiro. The bad 
character of their leader and dissensions among them- 
selves brought the colony to the verge of ruin, and 
the Portuguese completed its destruction. In 1562 
the distinguished French Huguenot, Coligny, obtained 
from the French crown permission to plant a colony 
of Huguenots in the New World. A first attempt 
was made on the coast of Florida, near its northern 
limit, and abandoned. A second was undertaken under 
the same auspices, in 1564, but, in its tragical termina- 
tion, furnishes one of the darkest passages in colonial 
history. The site chosen was at the mouth of the St. 
John's River. Though the promoters of the colony 



English North American Discoveries. 119 

professed religious motives, the colonists included 
desperate men, who engaged in piracy against the 
Spaniards. Jacques de Soria, a Huguenot pirate from 
La Rochelle, captured a vessel with forty Jesuit priests, 
who were on their way to act as missionaries to the 
Indians, and murdered them all, peaceful men though 
they were. 

Spanish jealousy was aroused. An expedition 
under Pedro Melendez de Avilles was fitted out for 
the colonization of Florida. Melendez landed at St. 
Augustine, so named by him, claimed the continent 
for the crown of Spain, and laid the foundation of the 
city in 1565, From St. Augustine, Melendez marched 
through the forests to the French colony on the St. 
John's. The garrison was surprised, and in the 
massacre which followed nine hundred persons are 
said to have been murdered, though Spanish accounts 
give a less number. In 1567 Dominic de Gourges, a 
native of Gascony, fitted out an expedition to avenge 
the fall of the French colony. He surprised the 
Spaniards who had erected forts on the site of the 
Huguenot settlement, hanged his prisoners, and de- 
parted. The French Government disowned the ex- 
pedition, and gave up all claim to Florida. 

The English had, in the time of Henry VIII, 
sent out Sebastian Cabot, who had discovered New- 



I20 Stories of American History. 

foundland. Their first notion was, that as Magellan 
had found a passage to India by the southwest, 
and Vasco de Gama by the southeast, they would 
try what could be done by the north. In the time 
of Edward VI, in 1553, Sir Hugh Willoughby 
had tried a passage to the northeast, but had been 
overtaken by the winter, and was found frozen to 
death, with all his crew, on the pitiless rocks of Rus- 
sian Lapland. 

In this same year a company of merchant adven- 
turers was formed in England, both for discovery and 
for traffic. They fitted out various ships, and among 
their most noted members were two Devonshire broth- 
ers, William and John Hawkins, sons of a captain who 
had once traded with Brazil. Their first voyages were 
made for the purpose of catching Negroes on the coast 
of Guinea, to sell to the Spaniards in Hispaniola. 
Thus beoran that share in the slave-trade which re- 
mained the shame of England for two centuries, but 
which was in those days thought no crime, as it was 
held that wild savage natives might be brought into 
bondage, if they were taught Christianity. Such voya- 
ges opened to John Hawkins and his comrade, Francis 
Drake, the way to what was then called the Spanish 
Main. After having made four voyages as a slave-trader, 
Drake resolved to make his fifth as a plunderer. 



English North American Discoveries. 121 

There was, indeed, no war between Queen Elizabeth 
and Philip II, but they bitterly hated one another, 
and the English had heard enough of Spanish cruelty 
to think it a virtuous thing to hunt down a Spaniard. 
The city of Nombre de Dios, on the Isthmus of 
Panama, was the place where the silver and gold 
collected from Mexico and Peru was received and em- 
barked in heavy vessels, called galleons, to be taken to 
Spain. 

In 1572 Drake sailed with two ships, to try to 
plunder these riches, hoping to surprise the place. 
However, the Spaniards had been warned, and were 
on the alert, and the English vessels were beaten off, 
though not before they had secured a great deal of 
booty. They entered the Gulf of Darien, taking sev- 
eral treasure-ships by the way. Here Francis Drake 
landed, and climbed a high mountain whence he could 
see the waters of the Pacific. He made a resolution 
that on the western ocean he would sail an English 
ship. 

In 1576 Martin Frobisher tried to get into the 
Pacific by the northwest. His ship, the Gabriel, 
reached a long channel, which leads from Davis's Strait 
to Hudson's Bay. He called it Frobisher's Strait, 
which name it still bears. He thought it would 
certainly lead to the great western sea ; but he lost 



122 Stories of American History, 

his boat and five men, who were taken by the Esqui- 
maux, and was forced to come back. A bit of black 
stone which had been picked up on the shore was sup- 
posed to be full of gold ; and he made a second voyage 
with three ships to penetrate the passage and bring 
home more gold. Of course the passage to the Pacific, 
through Hudson's Bay, was never found ; and though 
plenty of stone was brought home, no gold was ever 
got out of it, and Drake's way of getting the precious 
metal by plunder was much preferred. 

In 1577 Drake set forth with five ships and one 
hundred and sixty-four men to make the circuit of the 
earth. They preyed on all Spanish and Portuguese 
ships as before, and thus obtained their stores. They 
crossed toward Brazil, looked into the Rio de la Plata, 
then coasted along Patagonia. There they came to a 
gibbet where Magellan had hung some mutineers, and, 
strangely enough, Drake had to use this very same 
gibbet for the execution of a man named Doughty, 
who had been stirring up the crews against him. After 
much prayer for protection the ships safely passed the 
Straits of Magellan ; but a storm afterward blew them 
so far south that the voyagers were the first European 
navigators who beheld Cape Horn and the Antarctic 
Ocean. One ship was lost, and the others were 
separated. One went back to England, but Drake, in 



English North American Discoveries. 123 



the Golden Hind, went northward up the coast of 
Chili and Peru. In Callao, the port of Lima, he plun- 
dered seventeen vessels. 




Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake. 



124 Stories of American History. 

His notion was to try to enter the northwest pas- 
sage on the western side, and so come home ; but he 
found it impossible, on account of sickness among his 
crew, to get much farther north than California, which 
he never guessed to be a gold country. And then, 
striking across the Pacific, he touched at various of the 
great groups of islands south of Asia, which were 
mostly claimed by the Portuguese. Then he crossed 
the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, 
and came safely to England on the 26th of September, 
1580, having made one of the most wonderful voyages 
ever accomplished. Queen Elizabeth at first doubted 
whether she ought to reward a man who had certainly 
been a pirate — doing much harm to a king with whom 
she did not profess to be at war ; but at last she de- 
cided that, as every one looked on the Spaniards 
as fair game, she would go with the stream. So she 
knighted Drake, dined on board the Golden Hind, and 
had the vessel kept for a show ; while every spirited 
young man longed to go and fight on the Spanish 
Main, and the galleons sailed from the West Indies in 
fear and trembling of the terrible Englishmen. Each 
nation looked on the other as on wild beasts — deserv- 
ing no mercy. 



CHAP. XVIL— DISCOVERIES ON 
THE EASTERN COAST. 

1536— 1634. 

WE have seen how the Portuguese were gradu- 
ally settling Brazil, and drifting into that por- 
tion of South America which projects to the eastward 
of the longitudinal boundary line between the grants 
of the Pope to Spain and to Portugal. 

When Francisco de Orellana returned to Spain with 
accounts of the great river of the Amazons, down 
which he had sailed, he was sent out with four ships 
and four hundred men to make a settlement and sub- 
due the country. He died on his passage out, and no 
Spanish footing was made in the land of the Amazons. 
There were no great kingdoms like Mexico and Peru 
on the Atlantic coast of South America, only wild In- 
dian tribes with caciques living in little villages. Gold 
and silver were much harder to obtain, although the 
great river southward of Brazil had been named by 



126 Stories of America7i History. 

Sebastian Cabot, the Venetian, the Rio de la Plata, 
or River of Silver, because of a little he obtained from 
the natives. 

In 1534 Don Pedro de Mendoza, in the service of 
Spain, set forth to make a settlement on this river, and 
to look for the silver. He began to build a city on a 
site which he thought so healthy that he named it 
" Nostra Senora de Buenos Ayres." But the air did 
not agree with him ; his people could get neither silver 
nor food ; and in searching vainly for a way of getting 
across to Peru they came upon an enormous serpent, 
forty-five feet long, and as thick as a man's body. 
After four years of misery this settlement was given 
up, and Mendoza died on his way home. 

The city of Buenos Ayres was again occupied, and 
again deserted. Each governor of the province of the 
Rio de la Plata strove to find a passage to Peru. But 
they only succeeded in partly establishing the Spanish 
pov/er in Paraguay, which settlement was declared to 
be attached to the viceroyalty of Peru. They founded 
a city called Asuncion, or Assumption, which is still 
the capital of Paraguay. Another settlement, with a 
bishopric, was founded at Tucuman. In this manner, 
founding settlements and defining their jurisdiction, 
the Spaniards had traced out nearly all the western 
coast of South America, claiming the possession. 



Discoveries on the Eastern Coast. 127 

They had small settlements here and there, wherever 
there was gold, or silver, or spice to tempt them. 
Conquest spread southward from Peru, and the city of 
Valparaiso, or the Vale of Paradise, was founded as the 
capital of Chili. 

That long peninsula which hangs down from the 
eastern coast of the northern continent, and shuts in 
the Gulf of Mexico, had first been seen, as long ago as 
15 12, by Juan Ponce de Leon. This gentleman 
fancied that in the West Indian Islands there was a 
fountain, the water of which would make people young 
again. In sailing in quest of it he came upon this 
peninsula, which he took for another island. He saw 
it first on Palm Sunday, which the Spaniards call 
Pascua Florida, and thus it took the name of Florida. 
Afterward parties of Spaniards went slave-catching 
there, since it was understood that all Caribs or 
cannibals might be enslaved ; and it was easy to say 
that all natives they wanted to seize were such. 
But Florida slaves were sure either to starve them- 
selves to death, or to die of home-sickness. Several 
attempts were made at forming a colony in Florida, 
but sickness or war generally destroyed all the settlers. 
One man, named Cubeca de Vaca, who was made 
prisoner, became a sort of god to the Floridians, who 
thought him a child of the sun, worshiped him, and 



128 Stories of America^i History. 

— . f . — 

carried him about on their shoulders, in awe and 
trembling, till he made his escape into Mexico. He 
tried to teach them the true faith, but did not under- 
stand enough of their language. However, at last a 
settlement was made in Florida, but the Spaniards 
never spread any farther to the northward, partly 
because it was too cold for them, and partly because 
there was no promise of gold. 

The settlers on the Rio de la Plata and in Para- 
guay had a different character of natives to deal with. 
The Araucanian Indians were desperate warriors, and 
had a cacique, Carpolican, who made a resistance so 
brave that a poem was written on him. Nor have 
these Indians ever been entirely subdued ; they remain 
still free, under their own government. 

The Bishop of Tucuman invited the Jesuit priests 
to assist in the conversion of Paraguay. This order 
was at that time composed of the most ardent of mis- 
sionaries among the Europeans, and eight of the 
Fathers came out, mostly Spaniards and Italians, but 
one Scotch by birth. They had learned something by 
the failure of some missionaries, and by the success 
of Las Casas and the Dominicans with certain wild 
tribes in Mexico, in making the Land of War the Land 
of Peace. The plan of the Jesuits was to go about in 
pairs, after having learned the Indian language, and 



Discoveries on the Eastern Coast. 129 

make little settlements with churches and schools, a 
dweUing for the cacique close to the priest, and cot- 
tages and gardens for the Indians, who were to be 
trained in cultivating their land, and in all good 
Christian knowledge. If Spaniards came among them 
they were to be civilly treated, but sent away after 
a day or two, and no one was to be allowed to 
strike an Indian. Their watchword was to be, "Love 
one another, even as Christ hath loved you." 

They wonderfully fulfilled it. Whatever were the 
errors of the Jesuits at home, their work among the 
Indians of Paraguay was carried out in the spirit of 
peace and love. Many villages sprang up, which made 
a perfect garden of the country round the Rivers 
Paraguay and Uruguay. The whole community 
assembled for mass in the church in the morning, 
then the youths were taken out to work in the common 
fields, and the children sent to school. The men 
worked in their gardens at home, but there was a 
public store of crops from the common land, whence 
the sick and the widows were maintained. The Jesuit 
Father of the village took all care and thought on him- 
self, and the gentle, docile people lived happily under 
him. almost without a vice, in simple obedience. The 
only fault in the system seems to have been that it did 
not train the Indians to think or act for themselves, 
9 



130 Stories of American History. 

but kept them as children all their lives, generation 
after generation dependent on a foreign order of priests. 
Yet perhaps this was because few Indians were capa- 
ble of being highly trained, there being, for the most 
part, a want of substance in their character. 

The Jesuits were highly educated men, and made 
many discoveries in the new country, which was most 
fertile in their hands. Maize or Indian corn, potatoes, 
cotton, and tobacco were already cultivated and used 
in America. Turkeys (called, in French, dinde^ were 
first found in Mexico ; and several important plants, 
for use or medicine, were now made available, in 
especial caoutchouc, or Indian-rubber, and cinchona, or 
quinine — the great remedy for ague or marsh-fever. 
This last was long known as Jesuit's bark. 




CHAP. XVIII.— ENGLISH SAILORS ON 
THE SPANISH MAIN. 

1584— 1596. 

WHILE Francis Drake was on his voyage round 
the world, another Devonshire man, Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, proposed to found a settlement in 
Newfoundland, whence the Spaniards might be more 
effectually harassed. He made the attempt twice, but, 
though he was allowed to read out to an assemblage of 
tradesmen and fishermen the royal commission giving 
him possession of the territory, both times failed. 
Newfoundland was not fit for a set of men entirely 
inexperienced in guarding against the cold and hunger 
of that barren, fog-bound coast and terrible climate, and 
Gilbert was forced to sail on his return, in 1584, with 
only two ships. A storm overtook them, and the last 
the other ship heard of him was his voice shouting 
through the tempest : " Do not fear; God is as near 
by water as by land ! " 



132 Stories of A^nericajt History. 

The scheme was taken up by his half-brother, 
Walter Raleigh, who thought that it was useless to 
settle in the cold north, but that it would repay the 
colonists to make a home on that temperate coast 
which the French had surveyed. In 1584, then, he sent 
out a party to the land bordering on Carolina — a tract 
which still preserves the name which originated with 
the Huguenots. Raleigh named his grant Virginia, 
in honor of the virgin Queen, Elizabeth. Sir Richard 
Grenville took out one hundred and eight settlers, 
whom he landed on the Island of Roanoke, on the 
coast of North Carolina, leaving Sir Ralph Lane as 
their governor. They mapped out a city which was to 
be called Raleigh, and built a fort and some dwellings. 
But, instead of saving grain and planting fields, these 
fooHsh settlers roamed about in search of mines, and 
quarreled with the Indians. In consequence, when, 
a year later. Sir Francis Drake touched there to see 
how they were getting on, he found them nearly 
starved, and harassed on all sides by the Indians, and, 
to save their lives, they could only be carried home. 
A few days after their departure a ship dispatched by 
Raleigh with provisions arrived, but had only to take 
the cargo back to England. And yet a few days later 
Sir Richard Grenville came with three ships, and, find- 
ing the island deserted, left fifteen men to garrison the 



English Sailors on the Spanish Main. 133 

fort, and sailed away. Lane had found the Indians in 
the habit of rolling up certain leaves and smoking 
them. He brought some home and gave them to 
Raleig^h, and this was the first introduction of tobacco 
into England. The root called by the Indians batah 
was also brought home, and first grown on Raleigh's 
estate in Ireland, under the name of potato, and thus 
first made known in Europe. 

In that same year, 1586, Raleigh sent out another 
party, who had to fight their way with the Indians 
before they could land. The new-comers found the 
fort on Roanoke in ruins, and nothing of the gar- 
rison of fifteen men but their bones. Nevertheless, 
there were some friendly Indians, one of whom was 
christened and honored with the title of Lord of 
Roanoke. The governor of this new colony was 
named John White. With him came out his daugh- 
ter and her husband, a gentleman named Dare. In 
about a month after the arrival at Roanoke Mrs. 
Dare bore a daughter, who was christened Virginia. 
Virginia was the first white child born in North 
America ; but her fate is unknown, for while her 
grandfather went home to England for supplies the 
whole colony vanished. They were probably taken 
captive by the Indians, for none of them were ever 
seen again. The Island of Roanoke is now almost 



134 Stories of American History. 

uninhabited, but the traces of the fort may still be 
found. 

By this time there was open war between England 
and Spain, and the bold English sailors went as the 
Queen's officers instead of as adventurers. Moreover, 
the whole of South America was claimed by Spain, for 
the direct line of kings of Portugal had failed, and 
Philip II of Spain had claimed the kingdom and all 
its colonies, in right of his mother, a Portuguese 
princess. Brazil was therefore in his hands, and his 
strength and dominion seemed immense, but the 
English seamen knew better, and said he was only a 
Colossus stuffed with clouts. 

In 1586 Sir Francis Drake and Martin Frobisher, 
with twenty-five ships, and two thousand three 
hundred men, set sail for the West Indies. They 
touched at Dominica, where the natives were as yet 
undisturbed, and at St. Christopher's, which was 
uninhabited ; and then they fell on Hispaniola, the 
oldest settlement of all, and full of riches. They 
seized the gates of San Domingo, got into the citadel, 
and called on the Spaniards to ransom their city, 
declaring that they would every day hang several 
prisoners, and burn a part of the city, till the governor 
came to terms. At last ^7,000 was paid them, large 
stores of provisions were furnished, and they sailed 



English Sailors on the Spanish Main. 135 

away, having held the place thirty days. They had 
been amused by finding on the wall of the palace a 
painting of a horse leaping off the globe, with the 
inscription " The world is not enough." 

Next, in like manner, they fell upon Carthagena, 
on the mainland, and after hard fighting gained the 
harbor ; and did what they called " scorching," as at 
San Domingo, every day, till they obtained a still 
larger ransom. But there was a bad fever among 
them, and their wounded died of lock-jaw; so they 
sailed north, into a more temperate climate, to see 
after the Virginian settlement, taking the ships of the 
Spaniards by the way, and harrying their towns in 
Florida. They found the party at Roanoke in a sad 
state — as noted in a previous chapter — by their own 
fault. 

Plunder of the galleons as they came to Spain, and 
of the Spanish settlements on the coast, was thought 
the most honorable mode of serving the Queen and 
making one's own fortune ; and, of course, the Span- 
iards thought of the English pretty much as the old 
Saxons thought of the Danish sea-kings, as mere sea- 
robbers. On each side there were grievous cruelties, 
for Roman Catholics thought the English heretics, and 
worthy to be hanged or burned, and the English were 
full of bitter, savage revenge. 



136 Stories of American History, 

When in 1580 the King of Spain claimed the crown 
of Portugal and its colonies, there was some resistance, 
but eventually, for sixty years, all the Christian portion 
of South America acknowledged fealty to the crown 
of Spain. But the colonies received little protection 
from that Government, while they were invaded and 
attacked by its enemies. The Portuguese were even 
raided by their Spanish neighbors, to reduce them to 
a submission for which they could hardly understand 
the reason. The Indians in Brazil were faithful allies 
of the Portuguese settlers; and in 1594 a party of 
Indians armed only with arrows, and led by a Jesuit 
Father, repelled the landing of a Spanish privateering 
expedition. In 1592 they cut off a plundering party 
of twenty-five men, sent inland by an EngHsh adven- 
turer, Thomas Cavendish. Four years later, Sir James 
Lancaster, in command of a squadron fitted out by the 
London merchants, took numerous prizes on the coast 
of Brazil. France was at this time also at war with 
Spain, and engaged in raiding upon the Portuguese as 
Spanish colonies. 

Sir James Lancaster, joined by five French priva- 
teers, descended upon Recife, now called Pernambuco. 
He took possession of the fort, and seized all the treas- 
ure in the place. The Portuguese colonists made 
great rafts, set them on fire, and sent them down one 



English Sailors on the Spanish Main. 137 

of the rivers at the mouth of which Pernambuco stands, 
in hopes of destroying the English fleet. But Lan- 
caster's brave men, with their weapons and all about 
them wrapped in wet clothes, grappled the rafts and 
sent them safely out to sea. At last the eleven vessels 
left Pernambuco, loaded with spoil of treasure, timber, 
spices, and the like, which was fairly shared among 
them. The squadron returned home without disaster, 
Lancaster giving thanks as having done a good work 
under Heaven's blessing. 

Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake had also 
gone on a plundering expedition to the islands, with 
twenty-seven ships, though Hawkins was then seventy 
years old. They did much harm to the Spaniards but 
without gaining much themselves, and the two leaders 
grew angry and quarreled. After some hot words with 
Drake, Hawkins fell ill and died at sea, near the Island 
of Porto Rico in November, 1595. Drake attacked 
the place, was repulsed, sailed away; and, after plun- 
dering several settlements, went to Nombre de Dios, 
on the Isthmus of Darien, whence the fleet was driven 
away by the breaking out of a deadly disease. Drake 
was among the victims, and died just as his fleet an- 
chored at Porto Bello, on the coast of New Granada, De- 
cember 27,1595. His death is said to have been caused 
as much by grief and disappointment as by disease. 



CHAP. XIX.— THE FIRST NORTHERN 
COLONIES. 

1604 — 1618. 

CA j FTER the deaths of Drake and Hawkins there 
-^-^ were no more great plundering expeditions. 
The minds of the Europeans were, however, still pos- 
sessed with the notion of a great golden city, which 
they called El Dorado, somewhere in the interior of 
South America, to be reached from the river Orinoco. 
Troughs and boxes were thought to be made of gold 
there, and the people were said to powder themselves 
with gold-dust. Most likely these notions grew from 
the reports which the natives of the eastern coast made 
of the wealth of Peru. Sir Walter Raleigh believed in 
them, and in 1595 made an attempt to find his way to 
El Dorado, taking the Island of Trinidad at the mouth 
of the Orinoco, and making its governor prisoner. He 
forced his way up the river as far as he could in boats, 
making friends with the Indians, but finding nothing 



The First Northern Colonies. 139 

but dense forests full of wonderful plants and birds, 
and picking up specimens of ore. He had seen no 
golden city, but he still believed that through Guiana 
was the way to overflowing wealth. 

Elizabeth died in 1603, and James I, who succeeded 
her, made peace with the Spaniards, and discontinued 
all attacks on them. English sailors did not, however, 
leave off" their robberies of Spanish ships and settle- 
ments, and there were men from other nations who 
joined them. The French Huguenots had, for many 
years past, a piratical fleet at sea, and now that Henry 
IV had won his crown, he wished much to favor sea- 
manship, and there were numerous privateers sailing 
under the French flag. The Dutch, who had revolted 
from Philip H of Spain, and furnished some of the 
best seamen of Europe, were resolved on wresting from 
Spain some of her Western riches. The Spaniards 
called all these enemies boucanieros, from bouc, beef 
cut in strips, and smoked, which was their usual food 
when they camped on shore. As these buccaneers 
soon came to consist of the worst, fiercest, and most 
cruel men of all nations, they were a horrible scourge 
to the whole Spanish Main. They had stations for 
their ships at the Keys, or little uninhabited islands in 
the West Indies, where they kept their treasures, and 
whence they went out to seize merchant-ships, or burn 



140 Stories of Ainericaji History. 

villages on the land. The crews of their prizes were 
slain, or driven overboard, and such vessels as were not 
needed were sunk. 

However, James I was permitting more peaceful 
and reputable settlements. A new London company 
and a Plymouth company wished to make another at- 
tempt at North America, and he gave them a charter, 
allowing them to make laws and appoint officers. 
There were to be two settlements — the London Com- 
pany had Maine, the Plymouth Company, Virginia ; 
and a space of a hundred miles was to be kept clear 
between them to prevent quarreling. The first colo- 
nists in Maine soon abandoned the settlement, and did 
little more than give the name which the district has 
retained. The Virginian colony fared better ; and, after 
a period of suffering and dissension, was established 
securely under Sir Thomas Dale, who assumed the gov- 
ernment in 161 1. The laws were very severe, being, 
in fact, a code of martial law ; but so many attempts at 
settlement had failed from unruliness and improvidence, 
that perhaps severity was necessary. So a man was 
liable to death if he killed any cattle, even his own, 
without leave from the governor ; a baker who cheated 
had his ears cut off; a laundress who stole linen was 
flogged. The chief settlement of Virginia was James- 
town ; not much of a town, for the houses were of 



The First Northern Colonies, 



141 



rough timber, with seats of trunks of trees, and the 
church was an awning stretched between the trees, with 
a bar of wood nailed between two trees for a pulpit. 




Pocahontas saving Captain Sj?iith. 

The settlers cleared away the trees, grew maize for 
themselves and tobacco to send to England, and were 
called planters. 

The famous Captain John Smith was one of the 



142 Stories of American History. 

settlers in Virginia. His was a life of adventure, by 
land and sea. He had served as a soldier of fortune in 
different lands ; and as a maritime discoverer had traced 
the coast of North America up to Maine, and gave the 
country the name of New England. His services were 
invaluable to the colony of Virginia, and he was sent 
on expeditions for forage and discovery among the 
Indians. On one of these expeditions he was made 
prisoner by the Indian chief Powhatan, and doomed 
to death. He was placed on the ground, with his 
head on a stone, but just as an Indian raised a club 
to dash out his brains, the chiefs young daughter, 
Pocahontas, threw herself between Smith and the ex- 
ecutioner, and begged for his life. He was spared, 
and, on his return to the colony, the Indians made 
friends with the planters, and brought them skins and 
maize in exchange for red cloths and other articles. 
Among the bearers of these native commodities Poca- 
hontas frequently came with her basket. These visits 
resulted in her baptism, and marriage to a man named 
John Rolfe, who took her to England. There the red- 
skinned woman is said to have carried herself like a 
princess. After being the fashion for a time, it is also 
said that she met with many troubles, fell into great 
poverty, and died at the early age of twenty-one. She 
bore to her husband one son, who returned to Virginir, 



The First Northern Colonies. 



143 



where proud families trace their descent from the 
Indian princess. 




Marriage of Pocahontas. 

The Endish claimed the Caribee, or Cannibal Isles, 
which the slave-hunting Spaniards had nearly emptied 
of people; and in 1608 the Earl of Carlisle obtained 
from James I a grant of the Island of Barbadoes. It 



144 Stories of American History, 

had been discovered by the Portuguese, and was called 
the island of the Barbadoes, or bearded natives, but 
these had all perished. Barbadoes was the first English 
West Indian settlement. 

In 1 617 Sir Walter Raleigh, then a prisoner in the 
Tower, persuaded James I to let him sail to Guiana 
the second time, to find his way to the Golden City, or 
at least a gold mine. He had twelve ships, and his 
hopes were high. He was welcomed by the Indians, 
whom he had made friends with before, but he was an 
old and broken man. His health was not equal to the 
toil of exploring these unwholesome rivers, and he had 
to send a party forward with his son. However, the 
Spaniards had formed settlements on the way to the 
supposed gold mines. There was peace between 
England and Spain, but Raleigh had grown up when 
peace at home meant warfare on the Spanish Main. 
The Spanish town of St. Thomas, on the river Orinoco, 
was attacked and won ; but Raleigh's son was killed, 
and the party had soon to return to England. James 
I, angered at the attack on the Spaniards, executed 
Raleigh; not for that, but on the former charge of 
treason, under which he was in prison when released 
to make this unfortunate expedition. So died the last 
of Queen Elizabeth's great seamen and foes to the 
Spaniard. 



The First Nortkej^n Colonies. 145 

The great French king, Henry IV, was bent on 
forminof colonies in that farther north which Cartier 
had surveyed. It is said that the Spaniards had looked 
at the place, saw no gold there, and said, " Aca nada " — 
" Here is nothing " — whence it was called Canada. But, 
as Canada is an Indian word for a great plain, this is 
more likely to be the meaning of the name ; and the 
French called it Acadie. 

Under a leader, whose name still appertains to Lake 
Champlain, the country was explored, and found to be 
very fertile, though the winters were far colder than in 
the same latitudes in Europe. Large numbers of 
French came out, and settled on both banks of the 
river St. Lawrence. The city of Quebec was founded 
in 1608, and the French settlers were content to live 
as farmers, not seeking mines, but becoming very pros- 
perous. They behaved better to the Indians than did 
either the Spaniards or the English. The clergy who 
came out with them made many converts, since the 
Red Indians had little actual misbelief, and were ready 
to hear more about the " Great Spirit " from the 
" Black Robes," as they called the French priests and 
friars. 

The Dutch were making their attempts likewise. 
In 1609 they hired a gallant English sailor, named 

Flenry Hudson, who had already made two voyages to 

10 



146 Stories of American History. 

try to find the northwest passage. He tried again, 
and went surveying and touching here and there, from 
Greenland to Virginia. Thence turning northward, 
he put in at the mouth of that beautiful wide river 




Henry Hudson ascending the Hudson River. 

which still bears his name, and was delighted, as well 
he might be, with its lovely shores and the friendly 
Indians who came in bark canoes, and exchanged 
grapes, pumpkins, and furs for knives and beads. 
When the river became too shallow for his ship he 
sent a boat on a little farther, and then turned back, 
having named Staten Island after the states of Hol- 
land. His next voyage was again in search of the 
northwest passage. He entered the great watery 



The First Northern Colonies. i^y 

opening now called Hudson's Bay, but his men, 
frightened and angry, rose against him, put him in a 
boat, tied hand and foot, with his son and one or two 
more, and left him to perish in the ice. 

After this another Dutch expedition under Adrian 
Blok, or Block, in 1614, explored both the Hudson 
and the Connecticut Rivers. He passed through 
Long Island Sound, and gave the name to Block 
Island. He lost his ships, and spent the winter on 
Manhattan Island, where the city of New York now 
stands. There he built a vessel, which he named the 
Unrest. Manhattan Island was bought of the Indians 
by the Dutch for beads worth £24 (about $120), and a 
settlement was begun called New Amsterdam. Tracts 
were taken up in the interior by men called Patroons, 
or patrons, a title conveying baronial dignity. They 
came out each with fifty colonists, with leave to buy 
sixteen miles of land from the Indians, and to import 
Negroes from Guinea to work for them. Slaves had 
also begun to be used in Virginia to attend to the 
tobacco plantations, which the colonists would keep to 
a great extent; though wise men warned them that 
they would wear out the soil. 

The Dutch cared more for the East than the West 
Indies. It was in trying to find the southwestern 
passage without passing through the Magellan Straits, 



148 



Stories of American History, 



that, in 161 5, Captain Schouten, of the Dutch city of 
Hoorn, passed outside of the island group of Terra 
del Fuego, and named another Staten Island. The 
Hoor7t was wrecked, but she left her name to the 
southernmost point of the southernmost island. Her 
captain was considered a buccaneer, because he had 
disobeyed the Dutch East Indian Company, and his 
remaining ship was taken from him and forfeited when 
he arrived at the Dutch settlements in India. Five 
nations now had settlements in America — Spain, Port- 
ugal, England, France, and Holland. 




CHAP. XX.— THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 



1620 1637. 

iXING JAMES I was resolved that in England 
J-^ strong Church principles should be carried out, 
and that religious services should closely keep to the 
Prayer Book, and that every one should attend them. 
There were fines and punishments for those who 
refused. Now, ever since the Reformation there had 
been persons who wanted to do away with all forms 
that they fancied were like those of the Roman Catho- 
lics ; and rather than conform to the Prayer-Book rules 
they fled to Holland. When these fugitives numbered 
about one thousand they resolved, instead of living as 
exiles among foreigners, to go out to the New World, 
and make a home there. They sent to the king to 
beg for a charter by which to govern themselves, and 
for a grant of land. James would not give them a 
charter, but he said they might have the land if they 
behaved well and molested no one else. 



I50 



Stories of American History, 



So in 1620 one hundred and twenty were told off to 
go and prepare the way. They sailed from Delft in 
two ships, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, touching 
at the old English Plymouth ; but the last-named 
vessel proved unseaworthy, and only the Mayflower 




Landing of the Filgn?n Fathers. 



made the voyage with about one hundred passengers, 
among whom Miles Standish was the most noted. They 



The Pilgrim Fathers. 151 

meant to have gone to the beautiful Hudson River, 
but, missing that, they came to a harbor which they 
named Plymouth, after the port they had last left. 
The day of their landing was the 2 2d of December, 
and a young girl, named Mary Chilton, was the first 
to step on the new land. Then they built one great 
log-house, where all might sleep, and divided it in 
partitions for the nineteen families. A shed was built 
for a store-house, and another house for the sick. 
They built a fort with a flat roof and battlements, on 
which four cannon were mounted. It served also for 
a " meeting-house," and was fitted accordingly for 
religious worship. William Brewster was their Elder ; 
and as no clergyman came out with the first colonists 
for several years he consented to preach, but never 
administered the sacraments. They sowed corn, but, 
till it grew, they had to live by hunting and fishing, 
obtaining deer, turkeys, eels, lobsters, and shell-fish ; and 
often they suffered grievously from hunger, for cattle 
and farm stock were not imported into the colony till 
four years later. Half of the colony died during the 
winter. The graves were leveled with the ground, and 
in the spring sown with quick-growing grass, lest the In- 
dians should see how many were lost. The Mayflower 
returned the next year, bringing supplies and more 
settlers, and they began to get their heads above water. 



152 Stories of American History. 

Scattered settlements were made at different points 
in the district bearing the Indian name of Massachu- 
setts, or " Blue Hills." Among the most important of 
these was the settlement at Naumkeag, made by Cap- 
tain John Endicott in 1628. He acted in the interest 
of certain gentlemen in England, who were organizing 
a company. Prior settlers objected at first to the as- 
sumption of government by Endicott, but the reconcili- 
ation of the difficulty, which was " quietly composed," 
induced these Bible-studying Puritans to call their set- 
tlement Salem, \\\Q " city of peace." In 1629 a char- 
ter was granted by Charles I to " The Governor and 
Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." 
In June of that year the Mayflower was again on the 
coast, with four vessels more, bringing to Salem colo- 
nists sent out by " The Governor and Company." 
Seventeen vessels sent out by this company landed 
fifteen hundred persons in the colony. They sailed at 
different times, and all arrived safely at Salem and 
Charlestown in the year 1630. 

Boston, so named from Boston in Lincolnshire, 
became the capital. These colonists were Puritans 
like those at Plymouth, but they came direct from 
England and not from Holland. Their governor was 
John Winthrop, and very strict and stern were the 
laws, both in Plymouth and Massachusetts. The 



The Pilgrim Fathers. 



153 



strictest possible rules were applied, and every effort was 
made to enforce them. Tradition exaggerates the se- 




verity of these 
rules, but the fol- 
lowing are speci- 
mens : People who staid away 
from public worship were 
fined, and if they remained 
away for a month together 
were put in the stocks, or in 



Pilg}ims marching to 
Meeting. 



154 Stories of A7nerican History. 

a wooden cage. Light, foolish conduct was punished 
by the sentence to stand upon a stool in " meeting " 
with a label pinned about the neck. A scolding wo- 
man's tongue was fixed in a cleft stick, or else she was 
ducked. Worse crimes were met by whipping or the 
pillory, and many by death. It was needful, above all, 
to be watchful and vigilant, for the Indians could not 
but look with dread and suspicion on the white men 
who came to spoil their hunting-grounds. They were 
ready to fall on the intruders on any provocation. 

The settlement in Virginia felt this when their 
friend Powhatan died in 1618. All through his time 
the Indians had come and gone freely among the colo- 
nists, selling and buying, and the English clergymen 
who had come out had many plans for teaching and 
converting the Indian children. But in 1622 a planter 
quarreled with a chief and was killed. His servants 
avenged his death by kilHng the Indian, and the tribe 
resolved on vengeance. The whole of the colonists, 
between two and three thousand in number, were to 
have been slain by the Indians in one night ; but 
happily one man who had been converted gave warn- 
ing, and there was time to arm and prepare. As many 
as two hundred and fifty English were killed, but 
the others were saved, though for a long time they had 
to keep a most anxious watch, and the outlying farms 



The Pilgrim Fathers. 155 

had to be given up. In 1625, just before his death, 
King James called in the charter, and took Virginia 
under his own government. The settlements were 
spreading very fast. King Charles made many grants 
to persons as governors. Lord Baltimore was one of 
these. He settled the country on the Chesapeake Bay, 
northeast of Virginia, and named it Maryland, after 
Queen Henrietta Maria, who was usually called Mary 
in Enorland. He was a Roman Catholic, and seems 
to have intended Maryland for a refuge for English 
Roman Catholics, as Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay 
were for Puritans. But toleration and equality were 
secured in Maryland for all Christians. Maine was 
granted to Sir Ferdinand Gorges, and is said to have 
been named after the queen's French duchy. A 
small Swedish settlement was begun on the Dela- 
ware. 

There came to Massachusetts in 1631 a young 
Welsh dissenting minister, named Roger WiUiams. 
He thought the strict laws regulating doctrine and 
worship too narrow, and that law should only deal 
with crimes, not with opinion. These views were 
deemed very dangerous, and Williams was several 
times cited to appear before the magistrates; and at 
last the General Court or Legislature of the colony of 
Massachusetts pronounced against him the sentence of 



156 Stories of American History. 

exile for teaching doctrines which tendered " to sub- 
vert the fundamental state and government." It was 
resolved to send him to England in a ship then just 
ready to sail. But he made his escape, and in Janu- 
ary, 1636, fled on foot from his house in Salem, and 
for fourteen weeks wandered in the forests before he 
reached the Plymouth Colony. There he got together 
a few friends, and was about to make a settlement. 
But Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, who 
thought him ill-treated, sent him help, and wrote to 
him, advising him to make a new home on Narragan- 
sett Bay, outside the claims of other colonies. He em- 
barked with five companions in a canoe in June, 1636, 
dropped down the Blackstone River, and landed at the 
head of Narragansett Bay, where he founded the city 
called Providence. He obtained from Canonicus and 
Miantonomoh, Narragansett chiefs, a large grant of 
land with the islands in the bay, the largest of which he 
called Rhode Island, and named his settlement Rhode 
Island and Providence Plantation. He made his col- 
ony a refuge for all those whose opinions had caused 
them to be exiled. It used to be said that whoever 
had lost his religion would find it in some village in 
Rhode Island. He was a generous man, and when he 
found that a warlike tribe of Indians, called Pequods, 
were trying to persuade his friends the Narragansetts 



The Pilgrim. Fathers, 157 

to unite with them in falHng upon the Massachusetts 
settlers, he went to the chiefs at the peril of his life, and 
persuaded them to let the Pequods stand alone. Both 
Narragansetts and Mohicans, the two chief Indian 
tribes, became allies of England, but the Pequods re- 
mained at enmity, burning homesteads and torturing 
travelers. The settlement of Connecticut had been 
commenced, and the men of that colony, in 1637, 
united with Massachusetts, made war upon the Pe- 
quods, and burned their fort in a night attack, with six 
hundred people in it. The whole tribe were hunted 
down like wild beasts till most were slain — women, 
children, and all. Their country was laid waste, and 
the few survivors were made slaves. 




CHAP. XXL— MISSIONARIES IN NORTH 
AMERICA. 

1626 — 1655. 

'T^HERE was some endeavor at converting the 
Indians. It had begun in Acadie, the French 
settlement. In 1626 three Jesuit Fathers went to 
Quebec, intending to carry the faith to the Huron 
Indians. There was, however, war between England 
and France, and therefore between their colonies. 
Only two years after the Jesuits had come out, Quebec 
was taken by the English under Sir David Kirk, and 
the French Governor-General, Champlain, and all the 
French inhabitants, were sent home. 

After peace was made in 1632, Quebec was restored 
to the French, and two priests, called Le Jeune and 
La Moue, came back, and, going to a hovel in the 
woods, set themselves to learn the language of the 
Algonquin Indians. The cold in the winter was 
frightful, the rivers were frozen over, and water froze 



Missionaries in North Ainerica. 159 

at night close before the fire. These patient priests 
not only endured all this, but went about in Indian 
camps, amid all the filth, the noise, the smoke, the dogs, 
and the savagery, learning the Indians' ways of think- 
ing and trying to win them over to listen to Christian 
teaching. 

Five more clergy then came out, and three of them, 
of whom Jean de Brebeuf was the chief, went out on 
a mission to the Hurons, who had come in their canoes 
to confer with Champlain, at Quebec. The French 
governor committed the Fathers to the chief, and bade 
him take care of them. At first they found that the 
Indians resorted to them only as healers of the sick 
and owners of strange and wonderful things, such as a 
watch and a compass ; but gradually the nobler spirits 
were gained one by one, and large numbers came in 
after them. The Jesuits did not attempt too much 
civilization, or try to make these wild men live like 
Europeans ; but they only received such converts as 
would give up scalp-hunting, murder, and cannibalism, 
and would content themselves with only one wife. No 
one, who had not some real knowledge of the faith, 
except little children, was baptized. One favorite re- 
sort for baptism was the lovely little lake called by the 
Indians Horicon, by the missionaries St. Sacrament, 
and now known as Lake George. 



i6o Stories of American History. 

Father Brebeuf translated into the Huron language 
a catechism for the converts. About this time arose a 
Protestant missionary, John Eliot, who came out from 
England in 1631, and became minister of the church 
in Roxbury, near Boston, in the following year. About 
thirty years old at the time of his arrival, he lived to 
fourscore-and-seven. Very soon after his settlement 
in Roxbury, he conceived a strong passion for Chris- 
tianizing the Indians. The venerable Dr. Cotton 
Mather, his junior and survivor, says of him : " The 
remarkable zeal of the Romish missionaries, compass- 
ing sea and land that they might make proselytes, 
made his devout soul think of it with a further disdain 
that we should come any whit behind in our care to 
evangelize the Indians." The Pequod war, or mas- 
sacre (1637), in which " a nation disappeared from the 
family of man," strengthened his purpose and quickened 
his zeal. Nearly fifty years of his life were given to 
this good work. In New England he is spoken of to 
this day as the "Apostle to the Indians." Edward 
Everett, the New England scholar, statesman, and 
orator, thus speaks of him : " The Apostle — and truly I 
know not who, since Peter and Paul, better deserves 
that name." 

Father Brebeuf, as noted above, translated a cate- 
chism for his converts. The Apostle Eliot translated. 



Missionaries irt North America, i6i 

first, the Ten Commandments and a selection of texts ; 
next, the New Testament, pubhshed in 1661 ; then, in 
1663, a grammar of the language of the Massachusetts 
Indians, and a translation of the whole Bible. The 
Indian title of the book may serve for an exercise in 
pronunciation. It is " Mamusse Wunneetupamatamwe 
Up-Biblum God Naneeswe Nuk kone Testament kah 
wonk Wusku Testament." A new edition was pub- 
lished in Boston in 1822, with notes and an introduc- 
tion by two eminent American experts in the Indian 
languages, Du Ponceau and Dr. J. Pickering. Eliot's 
Bible was originally published at Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts. He translated also Baxter's " Serious Call," 
and several other devotional works, and a catechism ; 
and he made an Indian metrical version of the Psalms. 
Most curious of all, he wrote "The Logic Primer for 
the Use of Indians." The use of this is, however, 
apparent when we read that to Harvard College, in 
Cambridge, founded in 1636, there was annexed a 
building sufficient to accommodate twenty Indian 
students. Several schools were established at different 
points, and the Indian college was designed for the 
education of Indian preachers. There were at one 
time four-and-twenty Indian ministers of the gospel, 
besides several white missionaries, in Massachusetts, 

who preached in the Indian tongue. 
II 



1 62 Stories of American History. 

Eliot fully believed that the devil was the red-man's 
master, and the " Great Spirit " that they v^orshiped. 
To prepare himself for their conversion, he spent 
nearly fourteen years before he ventured in 1646 to 
preach to the Narragansetts the first sermon to them 
in their own tongue. The number of towns of " pray- 
ing Indians" grew up, by the year 1674, to fourteen, 
and over these Eliot seems to have presided, in a way, 
as bishop, without the title. The principal Indian 
town was Natick, on the Charles River, which EHot 
tried to rule by a constitution as like that of the 
Israelites under Moses as he could make it, and where 
he was gradually taming and civilizing the natives, 
and making them good men. He received some small 
aid from England, had influential supporters in the 
colony, and the sympathy of the best of the settlers 
was with him. But the Indian chiefs, with few excep- 
tions, and their " medicine-men " or priests, were his 
determined enemies, and only their fear of the English 
preserved his life. As to the converts themselves, they 
were under a ban. The Indians drove out from 
their society all who favored Christianity, and put 
them to death when it could be done secretly or safely. 
But for the dread of their protectors, the English, 
all the converts w^ould have been murdered. The 
colonists could not but live in dread of such trouble- 



Missionaries i7i North America. 163 

some neighbors, and, if to some of them a " praying 
Indian" was only an Indian after all, it is not to be 
wondered at. What further became of the Apostle 
Eliot's efforts will be noted in a future chapter. We 
have anticipated events somewhat, in order to give a 
concise view of his labors and his character. And it 
may be proper here to remark that English-speaking 
people have not relaxed their efforts — subject of course 
to unhappy interruptions — to Christianize the Indians. 
Christians of all names are at work among those who 
remain, both in the British dominion and in the United 
States. As we have spoken of translations, it is due 
to the chief, Brant of the Mohawks, who figured in the 
last century, to say that he translated the Book of 
Common Prayer and St. Mark's Gospel into his native 
language. The mission and Bible presses of to-day 
issue Bibles and religious publications in the Indian 
languages, and there is at least one missionary paper 
published in English and Indian at one of the Western 
missionary stations. 

Alas ! Dutch emulation of the Jesuits took a differ- 
ent form from that of the Apostle Eliot. Under Philip 
II of Spain, Holland had been so cruelly treated by the 
Roman Catholic Church that her sons revenged them- 
selves on priests and Spaniards wherever they found 
them, even if engaged in the most pious and innocent 



164 Stories of Americait History. 

work. At the Dutch settlements on the Hudson River 
lire-arms were freely furnished to the Iroquois, a fierce 
and warlike tribe, who bitterly hated the Hurons and 
Algonquins, the Indian allies or subjects of the 
Catholic French. The Iroquois roamed about the 
banks of the St. Lawrence, and seized a large party 
of Christian Indians, with two French priests. The 
tortures they made them suffer were beyond all meas- 
ure, and can not be dwelt upon. One priest, Goupil, 
was killed. The other, Isaac Jogues by name, escaped, 
though one mass of scars, his fingers gnawed off by 
dogs and men, and his left thumb sawn off with a clam- 
shell. He came back at last to France, and the 
Queen, Anne of Austria, kissed these hands with 
deep reverence. The Iroquois had sworn to root out 
the nation of the Hurons. No Frenchman was safe 
outside the walls of Quebec and the towns of Montreal 
and Three Rivers. Yet Isaac Jogues went back again 
to his post, and there he was taken again by the Iro- 
quois ; and, after having strips of flesh cut from his arms 
and back, was murdered at last with a hatchet by an 
Indian who, two years later, came and begged for bap- 
tism. The whole Huron country was devastated, and 
the Christians were hunted down, shot, or burned. 
Those taken were tortured in the most frightful ways, 
especially all the " Black Robes." Father Brebeuf 



Missionaries in North America. 165 

was tied to a stake, with a necklace of red-hot axes 
hung on his shoulders. Lamenant was surrounded 
with a girdle of pitch-smeared bark, and set fire to. 
Boiling water was slowly dropped on their heads, strips 
of flesh were cut off their limbs and eaten before their 
eyes, but they never flinched. When Brebeufs breast 
was finally torn open, the chiefs flocked to drink the 
blood of so valiant an enemy, thinking it would inspire 
them with courage. The remnants of the tribe, eight 
thousand in number, with a few chiefs, took refuge on 
Great Manitoulin Isle, in Lake Huron. There they 
were safe from all but starvation in the summer, but 
they were horribly attacked as soon as the winter set 
in. They were able to keep the island, but were shot 
down if they hunted in the woods on the mainland, or 
fished in the lake. Hunger and sickness destroyed 
those who were not slain, and at last only three hun- 
dred Hurons were left alive, when, with their French 
clergy, they escaped to Quebec. 

Then came the times of the Commonwealth in 
England. A good many of the cavaliers or royal party 
took refuge in Virginia, where they built stately manor- 
houses, and brick churches, in the taste of the seven- 
teenth century. 

During the war which Charles I maintained against 
the Parliamentary forces, he commissioned his nephew, 



1 66 Stories of American History, 

Prince Rupert, to command a regiment of horse. 
Prince Rupert, brilliant in attack, was deficient in steadi- 
ness and in discretion. He surrendered the city of 
Bristol to the Parliamentary forces, and was dismissed. 
He was recalled in 1648, and given command of the 
royal fleet. With such of the squadron as adhered to 
the royal cause, and with some of the cavaliers who had 
served with him on land, he kept afloat until 1651, 
nearly two years after the death of Charles I. In that 
year the Parliamentary admiral, the famous Blake, de- 
feated him, destroying most of his ships. With the 
few that remained he made his escape to the West 
Indies, where, with his brother Maurice, he led the life 
of a buccaneer. Prince Maurice was drowned in a 
storm off the Caribee Islands. Prince Rupert eluded 
the ships sent to capture him by Cromwell, and took 
refuge in France. 

Fleets were dispatched by the Parliament, both for 
the repression of Prince Rupert, and to secure the 
allegiance of the American colonies. This was effected 
with little difficulty, Virginia submitting with the rest. 
Oliver Cromwell, though not formally at war with 
Spain, resolved to send out a fleet to put an end to 
the Spanish claim to a sole right in the West. Ad- 
miral Penn and General Venables, with about ten 
thousand men, attacked Hispaniola, but were driven off. 



Missionaries in North America. 167 

However, in May, 1666, they took Jamaica which has 
remained an Enghsh island ever since, though the first 
Enghsh colonists had to live a Hfe of hard fighting to 
keep off the Spaniards. The Negro slaves of the ex- 
pelled Spaniards got into the hills, and lived a wild 
outlaw life. They were called Maroons, and were much 
dreaded for many generations. Port Royal, the capital 
of Jamaica, was the favorite harbor of the buccaneers, 
who used to put in there to sell their prizes, and spend 
in riot their ill-gotten wealth. 

Under Cromwell, magistrates in Ireland and Scot- 
land were directed to seize all idle and disaffected per- 
sons they could lay hands on, and ship them off for 
Jamaica. Before the taking of Jamaica, thousands of 
prisoners of war had been sent as slaves to the island 
colonies ; and it is stated that no less than seven thou- 
sand Scotch prisoners, after the battle of Worcester, in 
which Charles II was defeated, were sent to Barbadoes. 
That island was wonderfully rich and prosperous, and 
was sometimes called Little England. 











^^P 


^Pi 


P^B^ 




p^^^ 


"TnilMi SI 


Kw"^^HyHi 


CHAP. XXII. THE SPREAD OF FRENCH 

POWER. 

1635— 1675. 

^npHE seventeenth century was the period of the 
-^ power and prosperity of France ; first under 
Cardinal Richelieu, the minister of Louis XIII, then 
under Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV. Though 
Roman Catholic, the French heeded the Pope's grant 
of the West to Spain no more than did the English and 
Dutch. They made a settlement in Hispaniola itself, 
and granted the Isle of St. Christopher's, with three 
lesser ones, to the Knights of Malta. De Poincy, one 
of these knights, ruled well and wisely at Basse Terre, 
in St. Christopher's, for twenty-one years, sitting under 
a great fig-tree to administer justice, once a week. 
There were three other French groups of islets, the 
chief of each cluster being Guadaloupe, Martinique, 
and Grenada. The great value of the Antilles for 
growing sugar was beginning to be discovered. The 



The Spread of French Power, 169 

Moors in Spain had grown the cane, and the Venetians 
had brought it from the East. But it was the Portu- 
guese who first began to cultivate it in Brazil, where 
it flourished so much that the Dutch made an attack 
on that country, and gained Pernambuco and half the 
coast, in 1624. They held these lands forty years, and 
would have kept them longer, but for the parsimony of 
the merchants, who would not keep up a proper army, 
and vexed the people with their exactions. 

The sugar-cane was soon introduced into the 
islands, and it flourished, especially in Barbadoes ; but 
the English planters only used the juice to make a 
refreshing drink, until a Dutchman, coming from Brazil, 
taught them to make sugar. At the same time De 
Poincy, in St. Christopher's, was, by study and experi- 
ment, greatly improving the art of growing and refining 
sugar. Coffee was likewise introduced by the French, 
as soon as it had become the fashion in Europe to 
drink it. A ship was sent out w^th some young plants, 
but, being becalmed on the way, fresh water ran so 
short that all the coffee-trees died except one, which 
was saved by the person in charge, who suffered ago- 
nies of thirst for its sake. It was the parent of all the 
numerous coffee plantations in Martinique and the rest 
of the West Indies. Cocoa and ginger were also 
grown, but, unhappily, none of these industries could 



170 Stories of American History, 

be carried on without Negro labor, and there was a 
constant importation of slaves, stolen from the coast of 
Africa. Not one of the Christian nations was guiltless 
in this matter, but the French were said to be kinder 
slave-masters than the rest. 

The group of islands near Florida, called the Tortu- 
gas, had been a resort of buccaneers, chiefly of French 
birth, and these growing tamer came under the parent 
government. In the Island of St. Vincent, one of the 
Antilles, the Negroes who had run away from their 
masters were called Maroons, as in Jamaica. They put 
themselves under French protection, and France began 
to be one of the strongest powers in the West Indies. 

Spain was fast growing weaker. Portugal, in 1640, 
had shaken off the yoke of Spain, and Brazil followed 
the example of the mother-country. After this the 
Dutch were turned out of Pernambuco, but allowed to 
settle in Guiana, on the northern coast of the conti- 
nent. The French likewise had settlements there, and 
called their colony Cayenne. Low, swampy, and full 
of forests, the country was baleful to human life, but 
very good for rice, sugar, spice, and pepper, and thus 
valuable to people who did not care at what price they 
grew rich. 

The French never made their colonists pay taxes, 
and even lent them money in bad seasons, taking pains 



The Spread of French Power. 1 7 1 

to guard them from pirates. They also greatly encour- 
aged missions. The Jesuit missionaries in Canada, who 
undauntedly prosecuted their work, were extending 
their teaching far and wide among the Indians. The 
French settlers made friends with the natives, often 
married squaws, and were on better terms with them 
than any of the other nations. In 1673 Jacques Mar- 
quette, a Jesuit missionary, found his way from the 
great lakes down the river Wisconsin to the Mississippi, 
that mightiest of rivers. He followed the Mississippi 
down to the mouth of the Arkansas, and then, turning 
back, took the river Illinois on his return, having voy- 
aged in canoes nearly three thousand miles in four 
months. Following in the track of Marquette, La 
Salle, a fur-trader, a man of wonderful courage and en- 
durance, reached the Gulf of Mexico, by the Missis- 
sippi River, in 1682. He had held the plan in mind 
even before Marquette's expedition, and contended for 
years against opposition and jealousy. He returned 
to France, bearing tidings of his discovery, and the 
country was called Louisiana, after Louis XIV. The 
French contemplated a chain of forts along the banks 
of the great river, to connect Louisiana with Canada. 
Direct communication was held, by sea, between France 
and Louisiana, but the first settlement would appear to 
have been made, in 1699, at Biloxi. From that point 



172 



Stories of American History. 



the colonists, starved out, attempted the settlement at 
New Orleans in 1 706. The colony languished. Upon 
the failure of John Law's great Mississippi scheme, 
the colony passed in 1718 into the hands of Bienville, 
who is considered the founder of New Orleans. 

During the prime years of Louis XIV, the English 




Dutch Costianes and Buildings ^ 1620-162 5. 



king, Charles II, was led into wars with the Dutch in 
which the colonies took part. Indeed, the colonists 



The Spread of French Power, i ']2^ 

began their wars in 1664, while the mother-countries 
were at peace. The English declared that they had the 
first claim to New Netherlands, as the Dutch had 
called their settlement on the North River, and an 
English fleet summoned the chief city, then named 
New Amsterdam, to surrender. The governor, Stuy- 
vesant, whose nickname was Hard-headed Peter, tore 
the letter to pieces ; but the citizens made him join the 
bits together, and, thinking it impossible to hold out, 
forced him to surrender, though he declared he would 
rather be carried out dead. The Dutch claim was di- 
vided into two provinces — one, called New York, in 
honor of James, Duke of York ; the other, New Jersey, 
in compliment to Sir George Carteret, one of the 
grantees, some time governor of the Channel Island 
Jersey. The city of New Amsterdam became the 
city of New York. The Dutch settlers remained, and 
kept their own language and habits. The titles of land 
were not disturbed. The Patroons still kept their 
manors and privileges. Dutch was taught in the 
schools. To this day many of the oldest famihes show 
their parentage by their names, and Dutch words re- 
main in the language. 

Among the religious movements which preceded 
and accompanied and followed the establishment of the 
Commonwealth in England was the rise of the " Society 



I 74 Stories of American History. 

of Friends," founded by George Fox. The founder of 
the society says in his journal, " Justice Bennett, of Der- 
by, was the first that called us Quakers, because I bade 
them tremble at the name of the Lord." The " Friends " 
maintained that spiritual worship forbids all sacra- 
ments, all forms, and all ordained ministers ; they bound 
themselves to the utmost plainness of speech and of 
dress, and also to use no weapon, even in self-defense. 
If, even in England, their innovations in worship and 
their defiance of laws, now happily obsolete, subjected 
them to persecution, and even to popular obloquy, it is 
no wonder that in Massachusetts they fared ill. The 
Quakers at their beginning were as yet not the logical 
and quiet people that they became under the teachings 
of Barclay and of Penn. They were not at first, as 
they now are, inoffensive to others, asking only peace 
for themselves. The laws of Massachusetts, at the 
date when the people called Quakers ventured into 
the colony, imposed stern restrictions upon all the 
people, and specially directed the modes of public wor- 
ship and the tenets of religion as the founders of the 
colony held their faith and worship. To permit the 
Quakers and the Baptists to set the magistrates and 
the laws at defiance would have been, as the Puritans 
thought, to subvert the state, and release all from 
obedience. Severe laws were added to those already 



The Spread of French Power. 1 75 

in existence. The meetings of Quakers and Baptists 
were forbidden. Their books were burned, and they 
themselves were flogged. They were banished the col- 
ony, and if they returned the law imposed on them 
the penalty of death. It does not appear that more 
than four executions took place under this barbarous 
law. A fifth victim was convicted and sentenced in 
the year 1659. But the inutility, as well as the cruelty, 
of persecution began to be acknowledged, and a public 
opinion, more merciful than the law, required a stay in 
these wTctched proceedings. The condemned man was 
spared and set at liberty, as were also twenty-seven of 
his companions. About this time came a royal order 
from England that the persecution of Quakers and 
others should cease, and thus the death of the four 
Quaker martyrs inaugurated toleration. In England, 
too, the Quakers were winning favor in the people's 
minds by their earnestness and their simplicity, so un- 
like the luxurious and ambitious splendor that Louis 
XIV of France had made the fashion. William Penn, 
son of the Admiral Sir William Penn, became a mem- 
ber of the society. Born to wealth, of high connec- 
tions, with official preferment open before him, he cast 
in his lot with George Fox ; and never did a new sect 
obtain in one person a more valuable accession. The 
irritable old sailor beat William as a boy, and turned 



176 Stories of American History. 

him out-of-doors, after he had been expelled from Ox- 
ford for consorting with " Friends " and " Non-conform- 
ity." Recalling his son, the father tried the experiment 
of giving him a tour on the Continent in distinguished 
company, among whom the future Quaker was quite 
a cavalier in dress, pursuits, and manners, and was pro- 
nounced on his return a " most modish fine gentleman." 
He had even a captaincy in the army offered him, 
which but for his father he would have accepted. But 
the young man returned to his first love — he became 
a pronounced Quaker. His father forbade him his 
house. His mother conveyed to him privately an al- 
lowance, and William Penn became an industrious 
controversial writer and preacher. He was imprisoned 
nine months in the Tower on a charge of heresy, and 
his release was obtained at last by the influence of his 
father with the Duke of York. Again he was arrest- 
ed, and fined for contempt, the jury failing to convict. 
His father paid his fine. During his long imprison- 
ment in the Tower his father, respecting the firmness 
he could not subdue, was his frequent visitor. The 
old admiral gave him his dying blessing, and William 
Penn became heir, among other things, of a demand of 
sixteen thousand pounds against the royal exchequer. 
Charles H was very willing to procure the canceling 
of this by the gift of a tract in the New World. The 



The Spread of French Power. 



177 



king called it /^^;^;^-Sylvania, though that word, with- 
out the prefix, was Penn's choice. A time had now 
come, with the restoration of the Stuarts, whose sym- 
pathies were with the Roman Church, that others de- 
sired toleration as well as the Quakers. Penn's broad, 
tolerant mind entertained sympathy for all, insomuch 




Penn treating zvith the Indians. 



that some bigots of his time accused him of being a 
Jesuit. His hopes were directed to a "holy experi- 
ment," the establishment of a government " in which 
perfect toleration should prevent religious persecution, 



178 Stories of American History, 

and well-defined civil rights secure to all men equality." 
A refuge for the Quakers, Pennsylvania was also opened 
to all who called themselves Christians. Penn's char- 
ter was granted in 1681. The first settlers under it 
sailed in the same year, and on the 8th of November, 
1682, Penn landed in Philadelphia, the City of Brother- 
ly Love. The future city was at that time but a collec- 
tion of wigwams or huts, and there were even dwellers 
in hollow trees and in caves. The advantages of the 
site, the character of the laws, and reputation of the 
founder, built up the city and province. Soon after 
William Penn's landing he had a conference with the 
chiefs of the neighboring tribes, and made friends with 
them so firmly that for years it was the highest praise 
an Indian could give to a white man to say he was like 
Onas, which was Penn's Indian name. 




^Hi 


^^H 



CHAP. XXIIL— INDIAN WARS. 



1675—1704- 






CA) FTER the cruel extinction of the Pequod Indians 
^^-^ in 1636, there was generally peace with the 
Indians in New England until 1675. During that 
period the labors of the missionary Eliot, as noted 
in Chapter XXI, had been unremitting. The Indian 
towns, generally near Boston, were about fourteen, and 
the congregations of "praying Indians" are said to 
have been no less than thirty. Several sachems were 
among them, but the great body of the Indians were 
jealous and suspicious of the converts ; and some 
powerful tribes resolutely proclaimed their determi- 
nation to abide by the customs of their fathers. In- 
deed, Massasoit, the first sachem with whom the 
colonists made treaties, wished to insert a clause that 
the English should not attempt to convert the Indians. 
Of course this was not assented to. And what a trea- 
ty meant was little understood by the Indians. The 



i8o Stories of American History. 

Indians considered themselves allies, and the colonists 
claimed jurisdiction. Individual Indians made sales 
of land which their sachems disallowed, and the 
decisions of the English courts only further aggrieved 
the natives. The Christian Indians were suspected 
of furnishing information or repeating rumors to the 
disadvantage of their race ; and, as the hunting-grounds 
of the natives passed from their possession, quarrels 
were constantly arising between the Indians and the 
border settlers. An unfortunate condition of mutual 
exasperation existed, which at last broke out into war. 
Massasoit died about the year 1653, at an advanced 
age, having been from their first arrival the friend of 
the English, though he never would consent to Chris- 
tianity. About that time his two sons, Wamsutta and 
Metacom, came to Plymouth, and in open court pro- 
fessed their friendship for the Enghsh, and desired 
that names should be given them. Wamsutta received 
the name of Alexander, and Metacom was named 
Philip. By these names they are usually spoken of 
Alexander succeeded his father, but upon an accusation 
that he had made war upon certain Indians, subjects 
of the English, he was summarily seized by the 
authorities to be taken to Plymouth to answer the 
charge. He died within three days of fever, or morti- 
fication. This was in 1661. 



Indian Wars. 1 8 1 



Philip, the younger brother, succeeded Alexander 
and appeared at Plymouth to profess his friendship, 
and obtain recognition as sachem of the Wampanoags, 
that being the chief tribe under his rule. But the 
indignity — if no worse — that Alexander had suffered 
deepened the mutual distrust between the Indians and 
the English till, in 1675, the famous King PhiHp's war 
broke out. The colonists had become convinced that 
Philip was organizing an alliance among the various 
tribes against them, and preparations for war were 
reported among the Indians. Conferences between 
Philip and the Plymouth men were held, in which he 
promised everything demanded of him. Still, the colo- 
nists were in a state of great alarm and uncertainty. 

Philip was summoned in the spring of 1675 to 
appear at Plymouth, and submit to an examination in 
regard to his conduct. And here comes in the name 
of an Indian who, whether designedly or not, caused 
the outbreak of hostilities. John Sassamon, belonging 
to a family of "praying Indians," received the advan- 
tages of Eliot's educational provisions, and went 
from Cambridge to Natick as a teacher. On account 
of some misdemeanor, it is said he left Natick. 
However that may be, he renounced Christianity, and 
carried the exercise of his gifts over to King Phihp, 
whom he served as a competent secretary. Again he 



1 82 Stories of American History. 

veered in his professions, principles he could have had 
none, went back to Natick, and gave such evidences 
of repentance that the venerable Eliot received and 
employed him. After this, Sassamon, under one pre- 
text and another, visited King Philip's tribe frequent- 
ly, and reported to the English what he heard and 
saw, and probably what he imagined. About the time 
that Philip was cited, Sassamon made one of his visits 
to the Wampanoags. It was his last. His body was 
found thrust through a hole in the ice, with his neck 
broken, and his hat and gun near by, as if he had com- 
mitted suicide. A jury was empaneled, who decided 
that he had been murdered. Three prominent Indians 
were seized, convicted of the murder on the single 
testimony of another Indian, and forthwith hanged. 
The young men of their tribe instantly retaliated by an 
attack on the settlement of Swanzey, which was burned, 
and in and near it several persons were slain. 

Thus began King Philip's war. It lasted over a 
year, and not one open battle took place. Every- 
where in the out-settlements, and near the villages, the 
savages pounced upon their victims, or shot them from 
their ambush, and all New England was kept in ter- 
ror. 

The list of disasters and burnings is too long to 
give ; the result in loss to the colonists was the death 



Indian Wars. 



183 



of more than six hundred men in the prime of man- 
hood, besides women and children. There was scarcely 
a family but lost a member. Twelve or thirteen towns 
were destroyed, and one in every twenty families was 
burned out of house and home. On the side of the 




Puritans attacking an Indian Fort. 

Indians, between two and three thousand were killed 
or made prisoners ; and of the captives, against the 
protest of Eliot, large numbers were sold as slaves in 
the isles where the tropically born Indians had already 
been worked to death. Within a month from the 
beginning of the war Philip was driven from his home 



184 Stories of Arnerican History, 

at Mount Hope, and from that time he was to the 
EngHsh a nearly invisible enemy, inciting the Indian 
tribes to sudden but disconnected attacks. He had 
many narrow escapes ; but at last determined to return 
to the home of his tribe, a hunted man. His own 
tribe now began to plot against the ruined chieftain. 
Once more he narrowly escaped, but his wife and only 
son were captured. " Now," he said, " my heart 
breaks — I am ready to die ! " A few days afterward 
he was shot by a faithless Indian. His son was sold 
as a slave in the Bermudas. So ended the last of the 
Wampanoags ; and with the end of King Philip's war 
the hostile spirit of the Indians in Massachusetts was 
quenched. 

In Maine, the tidings of the Indian rising in Mas- 
sachusetts was the signal for war by the Indians upon 
the settlers. But there was no general rising of the 
tribes. The sailors of an English ship were guilty of 
outrages upon the Indians, and they avenged them- 
selves upon the settlers. Among these lawless acts it 
is recorded that a party of sailors seized a canoe, in 
which were an Indian woman and child, and, having 
heard that an Indian baby could swim like a duck, 
they threw it into the river Saco. The mother dived 
and rescued it, but it died directly after. The father, 
a considerable chief, vowed vengeance, and a war, or 



Indian Wars, 185 



series of forays along the whole border, commenced, 
and lasted for nearly three years. The traditions of 
the early days of Maine are full of Indian horrors. 
At Norridgewock the Indians attacked a farmhouse, 
where the men were absent, leaving, unprotected, fif- 
teen women and children. A brave girl, named Tozer, 
set her back against the door to keep it fast while 
the others escaped. All saved themselves except the 
brave girl and two poor little children who could not 
get over the fence. The Indians cut through the door 
with their hatchets, and left the poor girl for dead, but 
her friends found her and she recovered. 

For the most part the French suited themselves 
much better to the red-skins than the English had 
done. Not only had their clergy done their best as 
missionaries, but the settlers, with their merry good- 
humor, had adapted themselves to their habits, and 
been adopted into their tribes, and the Governor of 
Canada, Count de Frontenac, learned the war-dance 
and danced with the chiefs. Nova Scotia, with very 
indefinite boundaries, was ceded back to France in 
1667, and Frenchmen settled far down in Maine. 
Baron de Castin had a trading station on the Penob- 
scot River, at a point where his name is still preserved. 
He married the daughter of a sachem, lived like a 
sachem, and was obeyed as one. Like the other 



1 86 Stories of A7nerican History, 

traders, he made no scruple of selling arms to the 
Indians, and thus the struggle was prolonged and 
enmity was stored up against the French. Peace at 
last was made by a treaty, in which it was stipulated 
that in return for their security the English should pay 
an annual quitrent of a peck of corn for every English 
family. 

Tribe hatreds were strong among the Indians, and 
were increased by their siding with this European 
nation or that. The friends of the French, the 
Hurons, Abenaquis, and Algonquins, were the ancient 
foes of the Iroquois, who were formerly called the 
Five Nations, because they consisted of five tribes — 
the Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and 
Senecas. Another tribe, the Tuscaroras, afterward 
joined, and the confederacy is now usually spoken of as 
the Six Nations. But as the Tuscaroras did not come 
in until 171 2, the old name may still be used. The 
Five Nations were the friends, first of the Dutch, then 
of the English, and both the French and Dutch fur- 
nished the Indians. Even when there was a treaty be- 
tween the European powers, their red allies carried on 
their own quarrels, and thus involved the whites. In 
1687 the French entrapped a number of Mohawks, and 
shipped them ofif to work as galley-slaves in France. 
The Mohawks in revenge burned and destroyed 



Indian Wars, 



187 



French settlements in Canada. In 1690 war between 
France and England having followed the Revolution 
of 1688 and the accession of William III, the French 
Governor of Canada, Frontenac, dispatched three 
expeditions in midwinter — one against New York, 
one against New Hampshire, and one against Maine. 
The white and red allies worked together. Much 
mischief was done, including the destruction of Sche- 
nectady. The English colonists invaded Canada in 
return, and this kind of warfare went on for years, 
till the Peace of Rys- 
wick in 1697 put a 
temporary end to it. 
It was conducted 
with more savagery 
than one can bear to 
think of The tribes 
who had listened to 
the missionaries were 
beginning to give up 
the practice of tor- 
turing their captives; 
but the state of 
things was so terrible that a price was paid on both 
sides for the head or the scalp of a hostile Indian. 
Every village in the north of the colonies lived in con- 




Block Hozise^ for defense against Indians. 



1 88 Stories of American History. 

stant alarm. After the Treaty of Ryswick there was a 
lull, but it was of short duration. In 1702 the English 
and French were again at war, and the old enmities of 
the whites and Indians were revived. On the last night 
in February, 1704, a party of French and Indians came 
from Canada to the little town of Deerfield, in the colony 
of Massachusetts. The settlers had been warned by 
the Mohawk Indians of their danger. A stockade had 
been erected and sentinels placed, but they had retired 
as morning broke, and the people were waked from 
their sleep by the war-whoop. The enemy was within 
the place, no resistance was possible. Forty-seven 
were killed, and over a hundred in number were carried 
off as prisoners. The village was set on fire, and all 
the buildings except one house and the church were 
burned. In an hour after sunrise, before the few who 
escaped could give the alarm, the stealthy savages 
were on their return. The wretched captives had 
their clothes taken from them, and no food given 
them except nuts and acorns and scraps of dog's flesh. 
The weak who could not keep up with the rest were 
killed, except such children as pleased the Indians, 
and for them they made sledges. All who could walk 
were forced to cany burdens. Such as reached Cana- 
da were sold to the French as slaves, but were kindly 
treated and allowed to be ransomed by their friends. 



Indian Wars, 189 



Among the captives were John WilHams, the 
pastor of Deerfield, his wife and five children. The 
wife was killed by the Indians on the way. Mr. 
Williams was released in 1706, and on his return 
published " The Redeemed Captive," a narrative 
of his sad adventures. His wife Eunice deserves a 
name among the saints. She did not leave her Bible 
behind, and the wondering savages looked at her as, 
when they rested, she turned to its pages for conso- 
lation. At last she could go no farther, and sank 
down to die. Her husband cheered her with the hope 
of the " house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." She " justified God in what had happened," 
and commended her five children to God, and their 
father's care. A tomahawk ended her sufferings, and 
her husband said, " She rests in peace, in joy un- 
speakable and full of glory." Of her children three 
sons became ministers of the gospel, and one daughter, 
having been adopted by Christian Indians in Montreal, 
would not leave them. She married a son of the 
family, and when, years after, she visited her friends in 
Deerfield, it was in an Indian dress, which with Indian 
customs she never laid aside. She clung to her 
husband and children. Others of the children of this 
captivity became hunters and trappers. 

In the thirty years after the outbreak of Philip's 



IQO Stories of American History. 

war the "praying Indians" kept their loyalty to the 
English. The Government trusted them, but the 
people were jealous of them, and not quite just or 
merciful. In the stern Old Testament idea of national 
policy, the Indians were to them Hivites and Jebu- 
sites and children of Ammon. All through the time 
from the days of Philip, dreadful incidents were hap- 
pening like those we have been reading ; and when 
there was no public war, which was seldom, there 
would be private quarrels. All these things were 
against the conversion of the Indians, but efforts still 
were made. Services were held for them in the 
English church at Albany, and Easter - Day was a 
great holiday for the Mohawks who came to the 
communion. The praying town of Natick was 
broken up by the war with Philip. The Indians 
whom the people distrusted were removed to Deer 
Island in Boston Harbor, where during the winter 
they suffered piteously. One party was plundered on 
the way by some Enghsh soldiers ; was plundered of 
all they had, even to their poor pewter communion 
chalice. After the war they crept back to Natick, and 
as long as EHot lived, which was till 1690, they kept 
their character as " praying Indians." After his death, 
from the hatred of their own race, and the jealousy of 
the whites, they faded away. 



Indian Wars. 1 9 1 



The sale of " fire-water " was not restricted, and it 
became the red man's curse as well as the white 
man's. Indians made sales of land, which in their sober 
after - thought they denied. The white settlements 
spoiled the Indian hunting-grounds. The Indian was 
warned off and roughly treated ; he retaliated by 
stealing cattle, if not children, and burning houses. 
He was shot at like a wild beast, then he fell on the 
Englishman with the cunning and cruelty of a fiend. 
So along the borders the Indians were nearly driven 
off, and those who remained withered away under the 
influence of dirt, brandy, despair, and a cramped life. 
This has been going on for two hundred years, and, 
though it can not be said to be over yet, the conscious- 
ness of strength now makes the white merciful, in 
cases where weakness and fear made him desperate 
and cruel. 

The Six Nations in New York sided with the 
English in her war with her colonies. Their service 
was accepted, in spite of the indignant protest of the 
Earl of Chatham, and the opposition of other high- 
minded Englishmen. The massacres of Wyoming 
and of Cherry Valley, and the murder of farmers near 
Fort Schuyler, with the devastation of miles around, 
show their course, and these are but leading incidents. 
In lesser atrocities they spared neither friend nor foe. 



192 



Stories of American History. 



A portion of the Senecas remain on a reservation still 
in New York ; the Mohawks retired to Canada after 
the war ; and both are thriving under Christian in- 
fluence. The Mohawks have the Bible and Prayer 
Book; but of Eliot's "praying Indians" there was 
not one alive at the beginning of this century who 
could read the Indian Bible. 







CHAP. XXIV.— THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 
OF CANADA. 

1732 — 1762. 

/TV HE English settlements were but a narrow line 
-L along the coast of North America, for a thousand 
miles, with the French to the north of them, and the 
Spaniards to the south ; and they were in great dread 
and jealousy of both. Whenever there was war in 
Europe the colonists attacked one another; and, as 
Florida became fuller of Spanish settlers, it was 
thought to threaten Carolina. James Edward Ogle- 
thorpe, a brave English gentleman, who had served on 
the staff of Prince Eugene, and on his return to Eng- 
land entered Parliament, was appointed a commissioner 
for the relief of insolvent debtors, and inquiry into the 
state of prisons. People were then imprisoned for debt, 
and as of course they could do nothing to pay what 
they owed, there they lay for life in a hopeless state of 
misery and neglect. General Oglethorpe persuaded 
13 



194 



Stories of America7i History. 



King George II and Parliament tliat it would be a 
good thing to have another colony between Carolina 
and Florida ; and to permit him to hold land in trust 
for the poor, peopling it with the most deserving of 
these poor debtors, and with other unfortunate persons. 
In 1733 Oglethorpe landed with his first party of emi- 




Govemor Oglethorpe and the Indians. 



grants, and laid out and founded the city of Savannah ; 
and " the humane reformer of prison discipline became 
the father of a state, the place of refuge for the dis- 
tressed people of Britain, and the persecuted Protes- 



The English Conquest of Cmiada. 195 

tants of Europe." After about a year's sojourn in his 
colony, during which he estabhshed friendly relations 
with the Indians, Oglethorpe returned to England, and 
in 1 736 went out again with a new party of emigrants. 
Among them were a company of Moravians, and John 
and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism. 
After Wesley, followed Whitelield four years later, 
another of the Methodist pioneers. He visited all the 
English colonies, from Florida to the northern frontier 
His great object was help for Georgian orphans, whose 
parents had been sometimes solely recommended by 
poverty, without energy. Whitefield made many voy- 
ages and many land journeys, and died in 1770 at 
Newbury in Massachusetts. His bones repose in the 
crypt of a church in Newburyport, where they may be 
seen by visitors ; a rare, perhaps unique, instance of re- 
spect to Protestant relics, and certainly without a par- 
allel in the United States. 

The Moravians who went out with Oglethorpe 
were the re-enforcement of a larger body who had gone 
out before. They claimed their origin from John Huss, 
and claimed also a succession of bishops. Persecuted 
on the Continent of Europe, the Society for the Propa- 
gation of the Gospel, seconding the enterprise of Ogle- 
thorpe, invited them to settle in Georgia, as the colony 
had been named. They received free passage, provis- 



196 Stories of American History, 

ion for a whole season, allotments of land, and all the 
privileges of native Englishmen. Scottish Highland- 
ers, who, after the failing of the Jacobite risings, could 
no longer live at home, joined the colony, and volun- 
teers from many directions came in, Oglethorpe trained 
his colonists to fight bravely against the Spaniards, and 
promoted habits of industry. He thought the climate 
of Georgia good for silk-worms, and brought them into 
the colony, choosing as its arms, a family of these little 
creatures, with the motto, " Not for themselves but 
others." His laws allowed no slavery ; but after his 
surrender of his charter and colony to the crown, in 
1752, slavery crept in, and Negroes were owned by the 
rich colonists of Georgia, as well as everywhere else in 
America. 

The Spanish power was weak. It was the French 
that was really alarming. The chain of forts was 
spreading, which was to connect Louisiana with Can- 
ada. Along the northern border there was constant 
petty warfare ; the French Canadians invading New 
England, and the men of New England and Canada, 
and the Indian allies of each, committing atrocities on 
their neighbors. When in 1712 peace followed the 
war between England and France, which had lasted 
nine years, Acadie, or, as we call it. Nova Scotia, was 
yielded to the English, but the boundary was not fully 



The English Conquest of Canada. 197 

made out, and the border war went on. It was princi- 
pally in the hands of the Indians, who could not under- 
stand how they were made, by treaties in which they 
had no voice, subject first to one European power and 
then another. 

There was a brief interval of quiet, but the war in 
the colonies broke out with double force when George 
II and Louis XV went to war in 1 740 about the acces- 
sion of Maria Theresa. In 1744, AnnapoHs, an Aca- 
dian city, whose name had been changed in honor of 
Queen Anne, was threatened by a French expedition, 
which surprised an English garrison on the Strait of 
Canseau. Annapolis was not taken, but the French 
plundered the port, and carried off some prisoners to 
Louisburg, a fort on Cape Breton, so strong that it was 
called the American Gibraltar, as it commanded the 
mouths of the river St. Lawrence. These prisoners, 
upon their release on parole, told Governor Shirley, of 
Massachusetts, of some weak points in the fortification, 
and an expedition was fitted out by New England 
men alone — without help from England — which actu- 
ally mastered this fort, and thus saved their own coun- 
try from an invasion. The expedition was commanded 
by William Pepperel, a merchant of Maine, who for 
this exploit was knighted. The colonists were greatly 
disappointed and angered, when, two years later, at the 



198 Stories of American History. 

Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, their conquest was given 
back to the French. 

The French forts continued to spread at the West, 
beyond the Alleghany Mountains. No English colo- 
nists had yet made homes there, and each nation 
claimed the country — the French, because Marquette 
and La Salle had first discovered it ; the English, as 
having bought it from the Indians. In 1749 a charter 
was granted to certain colonists of Virginia and Mary- 
land, under which was formed the Ohio Company, for 
the settlement of the Ohio Valley. Here began quar- 
rels with the French, who drove back the settlers, and 
even established forts in the borders of Pennsylvania. 
Governor Dinwiddle, of Virginia, resolved to send a 
messenger to expostulate with the French officers. 
He selected for this purpose George Washington. He 
was a Virginian, born February 22, 1732, of one of the 
old families, who lived in the colony like English 
squires. His father died when he was ten years old, 
and he was largely indebted to his elder brother Law- 
rence for his education and the formation of his char- 
acter. In his education the practical was uppermost, 
and Lord Fairfax, the grantee of an immense tract in 
Virginia, noticing the exactness of his work in his ex- 
ercises in surveying near his home, employed the lad of 
sixteen to survey the Fairfax domain. So well was 



The English Conquest of Canada. 199 



the work done that Lord Fairfax procured for him, at 
eighteen, the appointment of public surveyor. The 
Ohio troubles had awakened a military spirit in Vir- 







ginia, and, when the colony was divided into military 
districts for the training of the militia, George Wash- 
ington, at the age of nineteen, was appointed one of the 
adjutants-general, with the rank of major. His brother 
Lawrence, one of the chief men in the Ohio Company, 



200 



Stories of A^nerican History. 



no doubt influenced these appointments ; and the con- 
duct of the younger brother vindicated the elders 
choice. George Washington was twenty-one years of 
age when, in the beginning of the winter of 1753, he 
started on his mission, traveling with Indian help 
through dangerous forests, and crossing the rivers in 
canoes, swimming the horses. After all, the French 
gave no redress, but showed plainly that they meant to 




Washijtgton's Rescue from the Ice. 



have the whole Ohio Valley. The return journey was 
still worse. They counted on crossing the rivers on 
the ice, but found the Alleghany frozen solid only a 



The English Conquest of Canada. 201 

few rods from the shore, and were obliged to construct 
a raft. The current was full of floating blocks, one of 
which struck Washington's setting-pole, jerking him 
into the water. He saved himself by catching hold of 
the logs of the raft. After a night of suffering, the 
party managed to cross the river on the drift-ice which 
was wedged together. 

The Virginians resolved on the defense of the 
frontier. There was peace between France and Eng- 
land, but each power sent armaments to America to 
defend its frontiers. Virginia asked help from the 
other provinces, but none would give it but South 
Carolina. The French could not be hindered from 
establishing a fresh post. Fort Duquesne, at the con- 
fluence of the Ohio and Monongahela, which completed 
the line of sixty from Quebec to New Orleans. Then 
General Braddock was sent with an army to help the 
colonists. He was cautioned by Benjamin Franklin, 
now from a printer's boy become a prominent official, 
and he was warned by others, of the character of In- 
dian warfare. Disregarding advice, he proceeded in his 
own way into the forests. George Washington, after 
a campaign with Virginian settlers, had resigned his 
colonial commission ; but he accepted an invitation 
from General Braddock to join his staff". On the 9th 
of July, 1755, within seven miles of Fort Duquesne, 



202 Stories of American History, 

while following a path only twelve feet wide, but in 
martial array, the English marched into an ambush. 
The French and Indians were much fewer in number, 
but numbers were of no use in such a place ; and the 
English soldiers were confused and dismayed by this 
mode of fighting, with the enemy hidden among the 
trees. Braddock retreated, mortally wounded, and 
Washington, the only one of his staff who was unhurt, 
had to do his best with his Virginian rangers to cover 
the retreat. One half of the English force was killed 
or wounded. Three companies of rangers had only 
thirty men left alive. Out of eighty British officers, 
twenty-six were killed and thirty-six were wounded. 
Of Washington, the Indians said that the Great 
Manitou guarded him. Two horses were killed, un- 
der him, and four balls penetrated his coat. 

The Indians thought that luck went with the French 
and the border burnings and desolations were worse 
than ever. At the north the English claimed that 
Nova Scotia included all the tract now known as New 
Brunswick, as well as that now known as Nova Scotia. 
The French claimed that the Bay of Fundy was the 
dividing line. Nova Scotia, which had been for thirty 
years a British province, had, in its population, seven- 
teen or eighteen thousand French settlers, who were 
excused from bearing arms against France, and were 



The English Conquest of Canada. 203 

called " French Neutrals," but were suspected, with 
more or less justice, of being ready to favor any move- 
ment to restore their ancient allegiance. The dispute 
about the boundary between New France and Nova 
Scotia, carried on by protocol in Europe, was brought 
to a point by the French in America, who erected two 
forts on the peninsula at the head of the Bay of Fun- 
dy. Massachusetts furnished three thousand men, 
the commander of which force was subordinated to an 
English officer who joined the Massachusetts men 
there on landing. The two forts were taken without 
difficulty, and in the garrisons were found three hun- 
dred French neutrals. To disperse the soldiers was 
easy enough, but to manage the fifteen or twenty 
thousand Acadians was not so easy. The Governor 
of Nova Scotia, the Chief Justice of the province, and 
two British admirals, at a council held in July, 1755, 
determined on the deportation of the unfortunate 
Frenchmen. They were taken off in ships, and landed 
at various ports, every colony receiving its quota. 
Some escaped, but the number actually transported 
is estimated at from seven to ten thousand. Their 
country was laid waste, and their houses were burned, 
and great hardships attended their removal. It was 
a harsh and cruel measure, the only excuse for which 
was what was deemed a military necessity. The sym- 



204 Stories of American History. 

pathy of the world has been with the Acadians ; and 
Longfellow's poem, " Evangeline," is founded on the 
story of these exiles. After the peace of 1763, those 
who survived were permitted to return ; but only 
some thirteen or fourteen hundred were found to ac- 
cept the permission. The colonial Assemblies, in 
many instances, had provided for the passage of the 
exiles to France, Canada, St. Domingo, and Louisiana. 

War between England and France was declared in 
1756, and the hostilities of the colonies were indorsed 
by the mother-countries. Things went ill with England 
nearly all through 1757, but in 1758 the tide began 
to turn. Washington, under Brigadier-General John 
Forbes, assisted in driving the French out of the Ohio 
Valley. Fort Duquesne was taken, and renamed Fort 
Pitt : it is now the city of Pittsburg. Fort Niagara, 
near the Falls, was taken with other posts, and the 
great line of forts was broken. 

Ticonderoga, an advance post which the French 
had established in New York, surrendered to the 
British arms, after having twice repulsed them. Louis- 
burg, on Cape Breton, was recaptured, General Wolfe 
here winning the title of " the hero of Louisburg." 
But the great exploit of the war was the capture of 
Quebec. Wolfe was sent in 1759 against the city 
with only eight thousand men. Quebec stands on a 



The English Conquest of Canada. 



205 



steep rock, in the fork of the rivers St. Lawrence and 
St. Charles, and was one of the strongest places in the 




General Wolfe's Army ascending 
the Heights of Abraham. 



world. General Montcalm came with an army to 
protect it, and repulsed Wolfe, who was nearly in 
despair, when he was told of a steep path, leading to 
the Heights of Abraham above the city. He sent his 



2o6 Stories of American History, 

troops in transports up the riyer St. Lawrence be- 
yond Quebec, thus deceiving the French ; and on the 
night of September 12, 1759, the troops descended 
the river in boats, drifting with the current, without 
sail or oar, cHmbed the heights to the plateau called 
the Plains of Abraham, and the French in the morn- 
ing beheld an army above them. Montcalm, whose 
camp was outside of the city, advanced and gave 
battle. Each general received a death-wound. As 
Wolfe, mortally wounded, was carried to the rear, he 
heard the cry, " They run ! " " Who run ? " he asked. 
" The French," he was told. " God be praised ! " he 
said ; " I die happy." Montcalm, on the other hand, 
said, on being told that his wound was mortal : " So 
much the better. I shall not see the surrender of 
Quebec." The famous citadel did surrender, without 
waiting for an assault ; and, though the French tried 
to retake it, they could not, and the next year had to 
surrender Montreal, their stronghold. 

The English fleet was very strong at this time, and 
Lord Rodney took St. Lucie, Tobago, Guadeloupe, 
and the western Caribbean Islands, as well as Marti- 
nique, the strongest of all. Spain was, in 1761, drawn 
into the war, as an ally of France, partly by a Bourbon 
family compact, partly by disputes with England about 
the Spanish Central American colonies. England made 



The English Conquest of Caiiada, 207 

war upon Spain as an ally of her enemy France. Ad- 
miral Kepple captured the great city of Havana, the 
capital of Cuba. Treasure-ships were taken, as in the 
days of Elizabeth. Peace was reached in 1763, by the 
Treaty of Fontainebleau. 




CHAP. XXV.— EXPULSION OF THE JESU- 
ITS FROM SOUTH AMERICA. 

1750— 1773. 

/TV HE Portuguese had always been the allies of 
JL England ; and Brazil and all that depended on 
it took part against Spain. But in the year 1 750 a 
treaty was made between Spain and Portugal, which 
traced out the boundaries of their American posses- 
sions, and defined the borders of Brazil. 

The river Uruguay became part of the boundary- 
line, and all settlements which had been made to the 
eastward, or Portuguese side, by grants from Spain, 
were to be broken up. All movable goods might be 
taken away, but all the houses, churches, and lands 
were to be given up, and the people themselves to 
remove to the Spanish possessions. It was like the 
removal of the French settlers of Acadie. The kings 
and their ministers, who sat at home, and looked at 
their maps, had no notion of the cruelty of their orders 



Expulsion of Jesuits from South America. 209 

to all these living beings ; for on the Uruguay were 
seven flourishing Jesuit settlements, where thirty 
thousand Guarani Indians were living, as their fathers 
and grandfathers had lived before them, as farmers 
and planters — a peaceful, civilized Christian life, look- 
ing: on the land as their own, which it was. 

The Jesuits sent to the two courts all sorts of repre- 
sentations of the misery that would be inflicted ; but 
the Marquis of Valdelirios, who had been sent out 
to see the treaty enforced, allowed no delay. The 
Jesuits were accused of having done much harm in 
Europe by their perpetual interference on behalf of 
the Pope ; and though here on the Uruguay they 
were quite in the right, and were defenders of the weak, 
they suffered for the dislike their order had excited. 
Because they had tried to obtain from the governors a 
delay long enough for tidings from home of the result 
of their appeal, the Bishop of Buenos Ayres forbade 
them to administer the sacraments ; and because they 
tried to induce their poor natives to submit patiently 
to what could not be prevented, they were accused of 
having sold their settlements to the Spaniards, and 
were treated like prisoners even by the Guaranis. 

The Jesuits knew that resistance w^ould be of no use, 
and that the Guaranis were not fit to fight, having lost 
all the spirit and dash of their wild forefathers. But 
14 



2IO Stories of American History. 

there was no hindering them from taking up arms to 
defend their homes, and this put an end to all hopes of 
mercy for them. The Spanish and Portuguese armies 
joined together and routed the gatherings of these 
poor people, killing some, plundering the rest, and 
absolutely driving them out, to revert again to the 
savage life from which their ancestors had been re- 
claimed. The Jesuits were accused of having incited 
them to rebel, and even of having taught them cruel- 
ty to the wounded. But this was disproved by the 
evidence of the Guaranis themselves, who declared 
that the Fathers had never taught them anything but 
to submit, and they would not have rebelled had 
time been given them to remove their property and 
cattle. In a few years more, the courts agreed to 
change again the boundary-line, the Guaranis returned 
to their homes, and the mission work began again, 
though some of the younger and stronger men, having 
once tasted the delights of savage liberty, could not be 
brought back. 

At home, however, feeling had set strongly against 
the Jesuits. They had done much harm as well as 
much good, and, alike for the evil as for the good, the 
Roman Catholic kings and their ministers were de- 
termined to put them down. The foremost in the at- 
tack was the Marquis of Pombal, the Prime Minister of 



Expitlsi07i of Jesuits from South America. 211 

the King of Portugal. He hated all monks and fri- 
ars, and the Jesuits most of all, and he seems to have 
honestly thought that the Indians of Uruguay, Maran- 
ham, and Paraguay were kept by them in an inferior 
state ; ignorant, half-clothed, and working to enrich the 
Order. So directions were sent out that no ecclesias- 
tic should hold any Indians under his power, and that 
the Jesuit mission stations should be made into towns, 
with magistrates like those of Portugal and Spain. 
Pombal had never seen, and therefore could not under- 
stand, the state of things, and that these natives really 
could not take care of themselves like white men, and 
that to take away the Fathers, who knew how to deal 
with them, was to give them up to ruin and savagery. 
He drew up long instructions to directors, who were to 
take charge of them, make them learn industry, teach 
them to speak Portuguese, and, in short, to make them 
just like Europeans. This was to take effect from the 
river Amazon down to the river Paraguay, wherever 
the Jesuit Fathers had missions and settlements of 
half-reclaimed Indians. 

At the same time, the Pope was entreated to send 
out a commission to inquire into the conduct of the 
Order in South America, and to see whether they 
were not like merchants, soldiers, and little kings all 
along these borders of Brazil. Just as the inquiry 



212 Stoi^ies of Americaii Histoiy. 

had begun in 1758, King Joseph was shot at and 
wounded in the streets of Lisbon, in his carriage, and 
a plot among the nobles of Portugal was discovered 
in which some Jesuits were said to be concerned. 
Probably this was untrue, but they suffered for the 
sins of their predecessors. Father Juan Mariana had 
published long before, in 1599, a treatise in which it is 
maintained that it is lawful to compass the death of a 
tyrant. The book had been condemned by the General 
of the Order, but it drew on the Jesuits an odium of 
which their enemies were not slow to take advantage. 
The Order was suppressed in Portugal, and in its 
American possessions. Every Jesuit was sought out ; 
they were brought together and shipped off — one 
hundred and sixty-eight from Bahia, and one hundred 
and forty-five from Rio. The sick w^ere taken from 
their beds, they were stripped of all their books and 
papers, and kept between decks like Negroes in a 
slaver, till the ship's doctor declared they would all 
die, and that the fever would spread to the crew. 
Some were kept in prison in Lisbon for eighteen 
years, till Pombal's death ; the others were turned 
adrift in the Pope's dominions. 

Misfortunes oppressed them. In Martinique a 
great bank which had been established under their 
management for the convenience of the commerce of 



Expulsion of Jestiits from South America, 213 

their settlements failed, and many persons were ruined. 
The Order were sentenced to make good the losses. 
A madman tried to stab Louis XV of France, and 
this, too, was suppposed to have been contrived by 
them, so that the French king also turned against 
them. 

In Spain a popular tumult frightened the king, 
Charles III, into supposing the Jesuits were concerned 
in it, and he followed the example of his neighbors in 
expelling them from all his dominions ; from Mexico, 
Peru, Chili, and the isles wherever he had possessions, 
these missionary priests were driven out, with not quite 
so much violence and cruelty as by the Portuguese, but 
to the bitter grief of the poor natives, whose best 
friends and guides they had been. They counseled 
submission, and did all they could to help them for the 
future; but in the year 1773 the Pope was persuaded 
to suppress the Order altogether. 

There were plans for educating and civilizing the 
Indians without the aid of the Jesuits, but no one 
would take the trouble to see these provisions properly 
carried out, and the Indians were not willing to obey 
the new-comers. So the natives fell back gradually 
into savage life, and the garden-like lands they had 
cultivated fell back into wildernesses. The clergy. 



214 



Stories of American History. 



being very little looked after by -the European church, 
grew more and more sluggish, selfish, and vicious ; 
the settlers more lawless and indolent, mingling with 
their religion gross superstition. In Spanish South 
America, in particular, every kind of evil habit pre- 
vailed ; and though the towns had wealthy and civil- 
ized inhabitants, the country around became full of 
wild, fierce, ruffianly riders, whose chief business v/as 
to pursue, catch with lassos, and kill cattle, great herds 
of which roamed at large. 




CHAP. XXVI. — THE THIRTEEN 
COLONIES. 



1762 1766. 

/TV HE peace which was signed at Fontainebleau in 
-A- 1763, between England, France, and Spain, left 
the northern continent of America in a very different 
state from that in which it had been at the beginning 
of the war. All the French possessions east of the 
Mississippi were given up to England, except the city 
and vicinity of New Orleans, which were assigned to 
Spain ; all Canada and Acadia ; and nothing was left 
to France but the right to fish on the shores of New- 
foundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with the 
Httle islets, St. Pierre and Miquelon, to shelter the 
ships ; but no more than fifty soldiers were ever to be 
on them, and there were to be no fortifications. The 
French Canadians were to be left free to live as Roman 
Catholics under English laws ; but no fishing-vessel or 
other from France was to come within fifteen leagues 



2i6 Stories of American History. 

of the shores of Cape Breton. In the West Indies, 
France gave up the Isles of Tobago, Dominica, St. 
Vincent, and Grenada ; but the EngHsh gave her back 
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Marie Galante, and Desirade. 

To Spain was conceded, under the treaty, all Louisi- 
ana west of the Mississippi, with an indefinite boundary 
to the north ; and she had New Orleans, as already 
noted, which is on the east bank of the Mississippi. 
She gave up Florida to the English, in exchange for 
Cuba, which was restored to her. She gave up the 
right to fish for cod off Newfoundland ; and she gave 
to the English permission to land in the Bay of Hon- 
duras, to cut mahogany and log-wood, and to build 
houses, warehouses, and quays, as long as they built no 
forts. This peace put an end to the last remains of 
buccaneering in the West Indies, and established the 
bounds of the national languages there. 

The English had still to fight with the Indian allies 
of the French. The Indians were much attached to 
those bright, kindly men, and were told by the Cana- 
dians that the King of France was only dead for a 
while, but would come again. Pontiac, the chief of the 
Ottawas, who is said to have led that tribe in the battle 
in which Braddock fell on the Monongahela, declared, 
" I am a Frenchman, and will die a Frenchman." He 
sent messengers through the tribes, offering them the 



The Thirteen Colo7ties, 2 1 7 

tokens of war — a belt of red and black shell-beads, 
called " wampum," and a tomahawk. All accepted 
them, and it was agreed to unite and drive the English 
from the Ohio, and the country along the lakes. Very 
cunning was Pontiac. He tried to surprise the post of 
Detroit, on the strait between Lakes Huron and Erie, 
by gaining admission to show an Indian dance, with 
thirty or forty of his warriors, who had tomahawks 
hidden under their blankets. A woman, however, gave 
warning in time, and when the dancers were admitted, 
they found the soldiers under arms. At another fort, 
some hundred Ottawas played at ball outside the walls, 
till the soldiers came out to watch them. Then the 
ball was flung close to the gate, and as the Indians 
rushed after it, each squaw handed her husband his 
hatchet, and he fell upon his man. Only twenty soldiers 
escaped. In the Ohio Valley every fort except Pitts- 
burg was taken ; more than one hundred traders were 
killed and scalped. The Indians massacred women and 
children ; and five hundred English families were forced 
to wander in the woods. Pittsburg and Detroit held 
out through this fearful five months, though Detroit 
was subjected to a new thing in Indian warfare — a 
regular investment and siege. Relief for the English 
arrived, and as winter approached at length Pontiac 
could no longer keep his wild warriors together. The 



2i8 Stories of American History, 

French behaved admirably through the difficulty. The 
Indians spared their traders, and the French, whether 
official or private, took no part, except to shield and 
protect prisoners, and to use their influence to explain 
the treaty, and persuade the Indians to submit. One 
of the French officers, almost the last to leave his post, 
sent belts and messages and pipes of peace to all the 
tribes, telling them to bury the hatchet and make 
friends with the English, for they would never see him 
more. Pontiac said he accepted the peace which his 
French father had sent him, and submitted. He was 
killed a year or two later, while in a fit of intoxication, 
by an Illinois Indian. 

The colonies which had gone through this war called 
themselves the " Old Thirteen." They were : New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Dela- 
ware, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. 
The first four of the colonies, with the District of Maine, 
belonging to Massachusetts, made up New England. 
James II attempted to consolidate all the colonies 
north of the Delaware; and in 1686 Sir Edmund An- 
dros appeared in Boston as Governor of all New Eng- 
land, including New York, and New Jersey as an ap- 
panage of New York. After the accession of William 
and Mary, the consolidation was no more heard of; 



The Thirteen Colonies. 219 

and, in the popular language of the United States, New 
York is not included in New England. Maine is now 
a State, and with Vermont, carved out of the rival 
claims of New York and New Hampshire, makes up 
the six New England States. The inhabitants of this 
territory were chiefly English, and about this time be- 
gan to be called by the nickname of Yankee, which is 
either the Dutch Yankin, the contraction of John, or 
else the Indian form of the word English. In America 
the term is applied to New-Englanders only, though 
in England it is used for citizens of all the States. 
Probably the Indians use the same designation ; for an 
Indian chief a few years since, who was conducted over 
the ships and forts to reconcile him to submission, was 
overheard, in his broken English, to curse the '' Yan- 
gheese." The New-Englanders were mainly Independ- 
ents or Congregationalists, and had built for themselves 
solid churches and schools. They had a university at 
Cambridge, near Boston. Yale College, in Connecticut, 
was founded in 1701 ; and among its early patrons was 
Berkeley, afterward Bishop of Cloyne. The New- 
Englanders were a hardy race, and had many thought- 
ful, resolute men among them. They had strict laws 
and observances, dreading such amusements as theatres, 
races, and balls ; and they led a hearty, wholesome 
country life, though laborious ; their wives and daugh- 



2 20 Stories of American History, 

ters workinof at all farmhouse arts and domestic manu- 
factures. The nature of their land taught them the 
thrifty habits for which Yankees are proverbial. New 
Jersey, though settled in part by " Friends " or Quakers, 
had a strong New England character given to it by 
emigration. Princeton College was founded by Pres- 
byterians in 1746. 

Emigration is apt to run on lines of latitude. The 
upper part of New York received thus a somewhat 
Yankee tinge ; but the Dutch element, from the be- 
ginning of the settlement, kept its hold, and modified 
New England Puritanism. The Patroon system and 
the better soil gave New York farmers larger holdings, 
and their handsome country houses and farms em- 
ployed a limited number of negro slaves, who, of course, 
led easier lives than on a Spanish repartimie^ito. Slav- 
ery existed, indeed, in all the colonies, though rather 
tolerated than encouraged in the northern settlements. 
The New York settlers never were so rigid in their 
mode of life as their neighbors. They were Protestant, 
the Dutch Church and its kindred Presbyterian bodies 
having early possession of the ground ; but the Estab- 
lished Church of England had an early footing. Dutch 
manners prevailed, and the families, especially in Al- 
bany, made the broad door-step of the house — stoop, 
they called it — a reception-room in the evening and a 



The Thirteen Colonies, 221 

sitting-place for the family, as they used to do in Ham- 
burg. On New-Year's day the ladies received all 




Scenes in Albany. 

their male acquaintances ; and the custom still lingers, 
though it is becoming evident that village fashions are 
inconvenient in great cities. 

Most of the colonists had fought with the French 
and Indians, and they rather looked down upon their 
neighbors in Pennsylvania, who had hung back. 
Pennsylvania had her own peculiar embarrassments. 
She had a proprietary interest, a colonial, and a British 



2 22 Stories of Avterican History. 

contending with each other, and the peace doctrines 
of her founder were in the way of mihtary measures. 
Benjamin Frankhn, Boston born, but Philadelphian by 
adoption, printer, philosopher, man of science, and poH- 
tician, was active always in public matters. It is said 
that he procured the passage of a bill through the 
Assembly for the purchase of grain and hollow ware — 
the grain being gunpowder, and the hollow ware guns. 
The frontier settlements of the province had received 
large accessions of settlers other than Quakers, and 
these settlers, organized into military companies, gave 
the first repulse to the savage foe in the Pontiac war 
In that war Pennsylvania was among the chief suffer- 
ers, but the benevolence of the Friends, who would 
not aid war, but who would relieve its victims, restored 
comfort and prosperity. 

The Virginians were more like country squires, 
living on their estates, except that instead of tenantry 
they had swarms of Negroes, who worked their planta- 
tions of tobacco and were their household servants ; 
though they were not quite so plentiful as in the Caro- 
linas, where black men were much more numerous 
than white. Among the whites in the last two colonies 
there was an admixture of French Huguenot families. 
The Virginians, among whom Washington was con- 
spicuous, had borne themselves bravely in the French 



The Thirteen Colonies, 223 

and Indian wars, and all felt that they deserved honor 
from the mother-country. However, there was a fool- 
ish, narrow jealousy in the policy of those times, and 
there was a fear of the colonies getting too strong and 
powerful and taking away the English trade. And 
far-seeing statesmen began to fear that the peace of 
1763, by relieving the colonies from the outside press- 
ure of colonial and Indian wars, would increase the 
difficulty of governing them according to the narrow 
colonial policy. 

The adherents of the Church of England, who were 
numerous in the Southern colonies, begged for an 
English bishop. They were refused, because it was 
then supposed that a bishop must be a wealthy, power- 
ful man, a member of the House of Lords, and this 
England thought impolitic. So the American parishes 
were held by clergymen ordained at home and invited 
out to the colonies. No one could be confirmed, and 
no church consecrated. It is curious that money was 
so scarce that these clergy were paid in tobacco to 
export, instead of coin. 

There were plans for uniting all the colonies under 
the same government. At a Congress of Commis- 
sioners appointed by the British Board of Trade to 
treat with the Indians in 1754, Franklin was present 
as one of the deputation from Pennsylvania. He 



2 24 Stones of American History. 

introduced a plan for a President-General, to be ap- 
pointed by the crown with executive power, and a 
council, chosen by the Colonial Legislatures. Here was 
the germ of the future Constitution of the United 
States. But the project was difficult. The constitu- 
tions and laws of the provinces, not being alike, were 
hard to reconcile, and there was an opposition made 
at home lest, by becoming one, the colonies should 
become too strong. The proposition was too demo- 
cratic for the crown, and had too much royal preroga- 
tive for the colonies. Another misfortune was that, 
each government being small, it was too often given 
to some poor hanger-on at court at home ; and these 
governors, not always being men of honesty, ability, 
or good sense, misrepresented the Americans to the 
English, and the English to the Americans. Still, the 
colonists loved the old home, drank the health of King 
George with all their might, and were ready to fight 
to the death against any foreign enemy. 

The war had been very costly, and, as it was in their 
defense, the Home Government felt it just that the 
cost should be partly borne by the colonists, who had 
never been laid under any system of imperial taxation, 
though they made grants to the royal exchequer from 
loans and taxes raised by their own Assemblies. The 
law in England had long been that wills, deeds, and 



The Thirteen Colonies, 225 

receipts should always have a government stamp to 
make them valid ; and in 1 765 it was decided in Parlia- 
ment to extend this Stamp Act to the colonies. But, 
in the days of Edward I, the Commons of England 
had established their claim to have no tax laid on them 
unless their representatives consented to it in Parlia- 
ment ; and the colonies in America considered that 
unless they were allowed to send members to Parlia- 
ment they ought not to be taxed. They resisted so 
resolutely that the Stamp Act was the next year 
repealed, but the main question was left undecided. 

15 




CHAP. XXVII.— THE AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION. 

1765— 1776. 

)Tv HE bill repealing the Stamp Act was accompanied 
JL by another affirming the authority of Parliament 
over the colonies in all cases whatsoever, and declaring 
the opposite resolutions of the Colonial Assemblies 
to be null and void. So the repeal settled nothing. 
The question between England and the colonies was 
still left open. The Stamp Act had brought the dis- 
cussion of these difficulties to a point. It had given 
official force and expression to the claim that the 
colonists, as Englishmen, ought not to contribute to 
the revenue without their own consent, any more than 
their kindred at home who sent members to the House 
of Commons. And it had produced a Parliamentary 
denial of that claim, but disbursed in the form of 
crown patronage. By the laws of trade, the Thirteen 
Colonies were cut off from all the world but England. 



The American Revolution. 



227 



Even trade with the British Islands was subjected to 
duties which were almost prohibitory. Industry in 




Patrick Henry before 
the Viroinia Asse7nblv. 



the colonies was repressed for 
the advantage of English man- 
ufactures. Under such a sys- 
tem the colonists were under 
a much more despotic author- 
ity than if they had staid at home. 

It was felt that the time had come for making a 



2 28 Stories of American History. 

stand, and Virginia took the lead. In the Assembly 
of that colony a young man named Patrick Henry 
brought forward a series of resolutions affirming the 
rights of the colonists as Englishmen. In the course 
of the exciting debate Henry said, " Caesar had his 
Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George 
the Third — " Cries of "Treason!" interrupted him, 
and he ended with, " — may profit by their example." 
It was voted that taxation could only be fixed by the 
General Assembly of a colony. The Assembly of 
Massachusetts, approving this principle (as indeed did 
all the colonies), invited their representatives to as- 
semble and unite in remonstrances. Nine sent depu- 
ties to the Congress which met in New York, two 
though not present assented, and thus eleven colonies 
agreed in drawing up a " Declaration of Rights " and 
a Petition. These were sent, the Petition to the King, 
and the Declaration to the Parliament, in October, 
1765. Some of the greatest statesmen, such as 
William Pitt, afterward Lord Chatham, thought the 
Americans in the right, and, if their counsel had been 
followed, means might have been found of keeping the 
colonies free, yet still loyal to the crown. But there 
were other advisers who believed the honor of the 
crown concerned to put down all resistance. The 
result was the repeal of the Stamp Act, but with the 



The Americmi Revolution, 229 

aggravating accompaniment which left the questions 
of taxation, of the army, of appointments to office, and 
the laws of trade still open. In the mean time further 
provocation was given. 

Boston was the foremost American town in showing 
discontent with the Government. " Liberty-poles " 
were set up, and frequent occasions taken for exhibit- 
ing the spirit of resistance. The quartering of British 
regular troops in the colonies was everywhere protested 
against ; and in Boston there were perpetual quarrels 
between the people and the soldiers, whom the mob 
called " lobsters " and " bloody-backs." These en- 
counters were with clubs and stones, the soldiers not 
carrying arms when not on duty. One of these dis- 
turbances resulted in the affair popularly called the 
" Boston Massacre." For two days there had been 
rioting between parties of soldiers and the laborers in 
a rope-walk. On the evening of the second day a 
sentinel was assaulted while on duty. Six men and 
a sergeant were ordered for his protection, and the 
captain of the company followed — in all, seven men. 
The crowd, presuming on the English law that no 
soldier may fire upon a crowd except under orders 
from a civil magistrate, pressed upon the soldiers, 
assailing them with taunts and missiles. Somebody 
gave the command " Fire ! " and a volley was dis- 



230 Stories of American History. 

charged, killing three men and wounding five. 
Warrants were instantly issued by justices of the 
town — the soldiers were arrested and committed for 
trial. The citizens demanded in town-meeting that 
the garrison should be withdrawn, which was acceded 
to, and it was removed to Castle Island. The seven 
soldiers were tried, and all acquitted except two, who 
received slight punishment for " manslaughter." John 
Adams and Josiah Quincy, both names of note, and 
among the most zealous of popular leaders, were 
assigned as their counsel, and did their duty for their 
clients. Of course this " massacre " was made much of, 
and added to the excitement of discontent. While 
the soldiers as individuals were exonerated, the Gov- 
ernment was held accountable. 

Over the whole country the use of the taxed im- 
ported articles was given up. The ladies took to 
spinning and weaving, and said they would wear 
sheep-skins rather than buy their goods of people who 
insulted them. Non-importation agreements were 
entered into, and merchants who declined to join the 
agreement were placarded as objects of public scora 
College boys graduated in homespun. This universal 
resistance produced its effect. The obnoxious taxes 
were removed on everything except tea. Commercial 
intercourse was resumed, though tea was still contra- 



The A77ierican Revolution, 



231 



band with the republicans. The duty on this was 
continued, as the Stamp Act repeal was loaded with an 
obnoxious rider, to assert the principle against which 
the colonists contended, the right of Parliament to tax 
the unrepresented colonies. To meet the non-impor- 
tation agreement, a drawback or remission in Eng- 
land of all duties was granted to the East India Com- 
pany on all teas which they would send to the colonies 
to pay duty there. Consignees were appointed to re- 




Throwinz over the Tea in Boston Harbor. 



ceive and dispose of the cargoes. Philadelphia led the 
way in protesting. Boston followed, and added action 



232 Stories of A^nericart History, 

to her protest. Three tea-ships arriving at that port, 
pubhc meetings were held, and the popular leaders 
harangued the people. The immediate sending away 
of the tea was demanded. The consignees not being 
able to comply, the ships were boarded at night by 
men dressed up as Mohawk Indians, and the chests 
of tea thrown or emptied into the water. The harbor 
was said to have become one great teapot, for what 
was called the Boston Tea Party. At other ports 
the cargoes of tea were sent back to England or de- 
stroyed. 

In much indignation the Home Government ap- 
pointed General Thomas Gage commander of the 
forces in America, and commissioned him also as 
Governor of Massachusetts, thus giving him in his 
double capacity the legal right to fire upon the people, 
and additional troops were ordered out to support him. 
The port of Boston was closed by Act of Parliament 
till the tea should be paid for, which, by-the-way, was 
never done. The port was effectually blockaded ; no 
vessels could come in and none go out ; none which 
were building could be launched from the stocks. 
Even water-carriage between wharf and wharf was for- 
bidden ; the ferry service across the Charles River was 
stopped, so that from Salem, the nearest port, goods 
could not be obtained. The town of Boston was re- 



The America7i Revolution. 233 

duced to the last extremity, and all industries were par- 
alyzed. The colonies vied with one another in liberal- 
ity ; but all supplies which came by sea had to be 
landed at Marblehead, thirteen miles distant from Bos- 
ton by water, thirty miles by the circuitous land route. 
British troops were as of old a continual provocation 
in a city, the very boys of which were rebels. General 
Gage adjourned the Legislature to Salem, which was 
declared the seat of government. The Salem people, 
like those of other towns, declared they would not 
profit by Boston's misfortune. The first thing the 
Legislature did in June, 1 774, was to make such a reply 
to the Governor's message that he refused to hear it 
through. The next was to recommend a General 
Congress to meet in Philadelphia in September, and 
resolutions were also passed recommending entire dis- 
continuance of the use of British goods, and all articles 
subject to Parliamentary duty. General Gage, finding 
what was going on, sent his secretary to dissolve the 
Assembly. But Samuel Adams — whom with John 
Hancock, Joseph Warren, and others. Gage was in- 
structed to seize as rebels — had locked the door of the 
hall, and the secretary read the Governor's proclama- 
tion on the steps outside. This was the last session 
of the Legislature or General Court of Massachusetts 
under British rule. Henceforth the people acted for 



234 Stories of American History. 

themselves, as did also the other . colonies. The prop- 
osition for a Continental Congress, which met as Mas- 
sachusetts appointed, had already been proposed in 
New York, and seconded in other places. 

The colonists were determined to fight it out. A 
year of troublous time passed without any serious 
encounter. Boston held fast, and had the sympathy 
of all the colonies. But in the spring of 1775 General 
Gage, having discovered that military stores were 
deposited at Concord in Massachusetts, sent a force 
of eight hundred men to destroy them. The expedi- 
tion left Boston at midnight on the i8th, and was 
intended to be secret. But the watchful colonists 
detected the movement, and dispatched messengers to 
alarm the country - side. Among these messengers 
was an ardent, popular leader named Revere. " Paul 
Revere's Ride " is the subject of a vigorous poem by 
Longfellow. At Lexington the British found sixty or 
seventy men drawn up on the village green. They 
were ordered to disperse, and hesitating, w^ere fired 
upon. Eight of these militia-men were killed, and 
several wounded. They were dispersed, and the 
British moved on toward Concord. Meanwhile the 
news had sped, and on their arrival they found the 
greater part of the stores removed. Two cannon 
were found and spiked, sixty barrels of flour were 



The American Revolution. 



235 



stove, and a few hundred pounds of shot thrown into 
a mill-pond. A bonfire was made of the liberty-pole 



-er— 




The Skirmish at Concord. 



and some gun-carriages. A skirmish took place 
between the militia and the regulars, in which two 
were killed and some wounded on each side. The 
regulars, finding the country roused, retreated ; but the 
retreat as far as Lexington was rather a rout, for ene- 
mies beleaguered them on all sides. At Lexington 
they found about a thousand troops sent out to re- 
enforce them. Even thus strengthened, they were so 



236 



Stories of America^i History. 



hunted and beset all the way back that they lost, in 
killed and wounded, near three hundred men. The 
loss of the colonists was ninety, of whom half were 
killed. And thus, on the 19th of April, 1775, began 
the " War of Independence." On this day was fired 
the gun which " echoed round the world." 

The Continental Congress had become a perpetual 
body, and assumed the responsibility of enlisting and 




Tliroiuing up Inirenchmaits on Breed's Hill. 



organizing an army, and appointing a commander-in- 
chief Meanwhile General Gage, threatened by the 



The American Revolution, 237 

concourse of militia gathered in the vicinity of the 
town, and shutting him in, decided on occupying the 
eminences which commanded the town. Bunker Hill 
in Charlestown, near Boston, was one of these ; and 
the Americans, finding this out in time, set forth to 
prevent it. On the morning of June 17th, the British 
ships in Boston Harbor found themselves confronted 
with earthworks six feet high on Breed's Hill. That 
was the point taken and fortified, as nearer Boston. 
Twelve or fifteen hundred men, under Colonel William 
Prescott, had thrown up the works during the night. 
The ships opened a fire upon the works, and a battery 
on a hill in Boston played upon them. The Americans 
continued the labor of intrenching, their colonel and 
other officers walking on the battlements amid the fire 
to inspirit the soldiers. At one o'clock the regulars 
landed in Charlestown, and undertook to march up the 
hill. Twice they were repulsed with fearful slaughter. 
The third time the advance was made with less show 
of contempt for the Americans than the first, and with 
more regard to military tactics. The Americans hav- 
ing exhausted their ammunition were forced to retreat. 
The exact time from the first discharge of the musketry 
to the last was an hour and a half. The Americans 
lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, four hundred and 
fifty men ; the British, over a thousand. The Ameri- 



238 Stories of American History. 

cans withheld their fire till their assailants were within 
destructive range, or, as it was said, till " they could see 
the whites of their eyes." The Americans lost one of 
their most promising officers, Joseph Warren, a volun- 
teer just appointed, but not yet commissioned. On 
the British side, seventy commissioned officers were 
wounded and thirteen killed, for they distinguished 
themselves by their courage in an affair which cost 
General Gage his military reputation. Charlestown 
was burned during the engagement ; but the defeat of 
the Americans, after having shown so much courage, 
was as useful as a victory would have been. 

Franklin wrote to his English friends, " England 
has lost her colonies." When George Washington 
heard how the Americans had borne themselves, he 
said, " The liberties of the country are safe." The Con- 
tinental Congress had already unanimously elected him 
commander-in-chief of the army. On Monday, the 3d 
of July, being then forty-three years old, he assumed 
the command, standing under a great tree in Cam- 
bridge, still known as the Washington Elm. His men, 
though stanch and brave, were undisciplined. The de- 
fense of Breed's Hill had been rather by agreement of 
purpose than by discipline. There was also a great 
want of powder, and a great need of tact to conceal the 
deficiency, to reduce volunteers to a sense of obedience, 



The American Revolution. 239 

and to reconcile jealousies. Bunker Hill remained in 
possession of the British. But Dorchester Heights, 
the other commanding position, was still unoccupied 
by either; till, on the morning of the 4th of March, 
1776, the British in Boston were surprised by seeing 
the heights crowned by fortifications thrown up in a 
night. The city could not be held, nor could ships re- 
main in the harbor, under such conditions. The idea 
of an attack was entertained, but abandoned ; and by 
an informal agreement the British were allowed to 
evacuate the town unmolested. This they did on Sun- 
day the 17th. About twelve hundred persons who 
held to their old allegiance went with them. In many 
places there were those who continued loyal to the 
British crown, and they mostly took refuge in Nova 
Scotia, whence they hoped to return when the war was 
over. 

Meanwhile, in the Continental Congress, steps had 
been taken which showed that the contest was no 
longer a struggle about taxation. The British deter- 
mination was, on the other hand, declared to be to sub- 
due the rebellion at any cost. Congress, in February, 
passed a resolution that the United Colonies had a 
right to contract alliances with foreign powers, and 
the ports were declared open to vessels of all nations. 
Great Britain excepted, thus reversing the colonial 



240 



Stories of American History. 



rule ; it was declared irreconcilable with reason and 
good conscience for the people of the colonies to take 
the oath of fealty to the British crown, and necessary 
that every exercise of authority under that crown 
should be suppressed ; and that adherence to the King 
of Great Britain was treason against the colonies. 




Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence in Committee. 

Meanwhile, a resolution that the colonies were, and of 
right ought to be, free and independent, was under con- 



The American Revolution, 241 

sideration, but delayed by the lingering doubts of some 
of the members as to the propriety of a step so positive, 
though the leading spirits had come to the conclusion 
that they must break altogether with the mother-coun- 
try. The postponed resolution of independence was 
reported from a committee, of which Thomas Jefferson 
was chairman, on the ist of July. On the 2d it was 
passed. On the 3d, the Declaration explaining and 
vindicating the resolution was taken up, debated, and 
amended ; and on the 4th was passed. In this paper 
the word Colonies is set aside for " Free and Independ- 
ent States!' The sole authorship of this paper is con- 
ceded to Thomas Jefferson. 

The Declaration was received by the people every- 
where with demonstrations of approval. It came at a 
propitious time. The evacuation of Boston, and a re- 
pulse of the British sea and land forces at Charleston, 
South Carolina, left the States free from the presence 
of any royal army, though the British fleets hovered on 
the coast. Generally the people were orderly in their 
demonstrations, though " Tories," as the loyal colonists 
were called, were in some places insulted and roughly 
treated. In New York, a leaden equestrian statue of 
George III was thrown down, and the lead cast into 
bullets. This statue had been placed in the Bowling 
Green by the citizens of New York themselves when 
16 



242 Stories of American History, 

the Stamp Act was repealed. Since the Declaration 
of Independence the 4th of July has been the great na- 
tional hoHday in the United States. 

On the first day of this year, 1776, Washington dis- 
played at his headquarters, near Boston, what he termed 
the " Union Flag." The field had thirteen stripes ; the 
upper corner, the blended crosses of St. George and St. 
Andrew. Congress adopted the flag, with the change 
of thirteen stars for the crosses ; and it remains the flag 
of the United States, except that for every new state a 
star is added. 

The French Canadians, who had been conquered 
chiefly through the New-Englanders, would have noth- 
ing to do with them, though invited by Congress, and 
thus Canada remained firm for the Home Government ; 
and its loyalty was re-enforced by refugees from the 
States. But the French Government and statesmen, 
sullen under the humiliating treaty of 1 763, were de- 
lighted at anything that could w^eaken England, Other 
nations shared the jealousy of her power. There were, 
moreover, enthusiastic youths who were charmed at the 
thought of a battle for freedom. The cause of America 
had able advocates in Europe in the American commis- 
sioners who had been sent over by Congress. Promi- 
nent among these was Benjamin Franklin. The com- 
missioners could not even, at first, provide a passage for 



The American Revolution, 243 

volunteers. The Marquis de Lafayette, a young French 
nobleman, twenty years of age, ran away from home to 
join the Americans, for whom he fitted out a vessel at 
his own cost. The French Government not only for- 
bade his departure, but dispatched vessels with orders 
to arrest him in the French islands, should he touch 
there. He avoided his pursuers, and landed in South 
Carolina in April, 1777, where his first act was to pre- 
sent Governor Moultrie with clothing and military 
accoutrements for one hundred men, as a token of his 
appreciation of the gallant .defense of Charleston when, 
in 1776, that port was attacked by Sir Peter Parker 
with his fleet, co-operating with Sir Henry Clinton. 
Several of the Poles, whose country had just been di- 
vided between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, came to 
fight in the cause of freedom ; and among them the 
famous patriot Kosciusko, and Count Pulaski. De 
Kalb, Steuben, and many more European officers, were 
volunteers ; so that Washington had at his side, in- 
cluding his own countrymen, both enthusiasm and ex- 
perience. 

The discussion of the Stamp Act had developed 
the purposes of the British Ministry, and the repeal did 
not surrender them. The resolutions of the Assem- 
blies had still their moral force. In addition to the 
expenses of the late war, a standing army was proposed 



244 



Stories of American History. 



for the colonies ; its officers appointed by the crown, 
and the expenses of the army to come from the British 
Treasury. The judges of the courts were to be ap- 
pointed in England, as well as other officers, and all 
were to be independent of colonial support ; the pay- 
ment for these expenses being levied on the colonies 
by taxation. 




Franklin pleading the Cause of A) 



before the French King, 




CHAP. XXVIII.— THE WAR OF INDE- 
PENDENCE. 

1776 — 1778. 

¥HE Americans had declared their independence. 
But there was plenty of sharp fighting to come, 
for, bold and firm as they were, they had to learn to 
meet disciphned troops, and to submit themselves to 
discipline. It was an arduous work for Washington 
to meet the exigencies of his position. His difficulties 
could only be intrusted to his safest counselors, and 
many times could not be confided even to them. 
Much of the burden he had to bear alone, and only 
subsequent revelations have brought out the full and 
evenly balanced character of the " Father of his Coun- 
try." 

After his repulse at Charleston, Sir Peter Parker 
sailed with his squadron to New York. Thither Gen- 
eral Washington had repaired after the relief of Boston, 
and held the city. In no part of the country had the 



246 Stories of American History. 

cause of the crown more supporters and adherents, 
and there was a plot discovered, and averted, to seize 
the American commander-in-chief. The British were 
encamped on Staten Island, in New York Harbor, 
and their fleet was anchored in the bay. The troops 
which had held Boston, together with fresh arrivals 
from Europe of English and Hessians, and the troops 
under Sir Henry Clinton, made up the British force 
of upward of twenty thousand men. About this time 
overtures were made to the colonies for a reconciliation. 
But as they were made informally, and Lord Howe, 
the bearer, would not recognize the official character 
of those whom he addressed ; and as the proposition 
was to pardon rebellious subjects, not to treat with 
independent States, it was not entertained. Had the 
offer come a little earlier, or the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence been a little • later, the tender would have di- 
vided the counsels of the Americans. 

On the 2 2d of August the British troops landed 
on Long Island, about fourteen thousand strong, thence 
to march to the ferry opposite New York. On the 
30th, Washington's forces, which had opposed their 
progress, retreating before them, safely landed in the 
city. The British followed two weeks later, and by the 
end of September were in possession of the lower part 
of Manhattan Island, on which the city of New York 



The War of Independence, 



247 



stands. There was constant fighting, but no general 
engagement. On the i6th of November the last post 
held by the Americans surrendered, and Washington 
retreated across the State of New Jersey. On the 8th 
of December, still closely followed by the British, he 
crossed the Delaware at Trenton, having previously 
sent over his sick and wounded and stores. He had 




Washington s Retreat through New Jersey. 



previously seized or destroyed all boats above or below, 
and thus cut off pursuit. This retreat through the 
Jerseys ranks among the most masterly in history, and 



248 Sto7nes of American History. 

would alone establish Washington's claim to the char- 
acter of a true general. 

Washington established his headquarters at New- 
town, Pennsylvania, nearly opposite Trenton, New 
Jersey. From thence, in the early morning after 
Christmas-Day, he dispatched a force of between two 
and three thousand men, to surprise the Hessian force 
stationed there in the midst of their festivities. It 
was a complete success. The Hessian commander 
Rahl was killed, about twenty men were killed or 
wounded, and nearly a thousand taken prisoners. 
With his prisoners, twelve hundred stand of arms, six 
field-pieces, and all the standards of the brigade, Wash- 
ington immediately returned across the Delaware. 

On the 29th of December Washington entered 
New Jersey again, and from that time till July there 
were various engagements, a battle at Princeton being 
most noteworthy. By the ist of July the British forces 
were all withdrawn from the State, and the march by 
land to Philadelphia across New Jersey was abandoned. 
Troops were embarked on the 23d for the capture of 
Philadelphia, and landed at Elk Creek on the Chesa- 
peake on the 25th of August. On their march to 
Philadelphia, they were opposed by Washington at a 
ford on the Brandywine River. While the battle was 
going on the British found another passage, and the 



The War of Independence. 249 

Americans were forced to retreat. In this engagement 
the loss of the British was six hundred, and that of 
the Americans nine hundred, in killed and wounded. 
Among the wounded was Lafayette. On the night of 
the 20th of September an outpost of the American 
army, under General Wayne, was surprised at Paoli, 
and Wayne was compelled to retire with the loss of 
three hundred men. Washington was unable to resist 
the passage of the British over the Schuylkill River, 
and on the 26th the British forces entered and occupied 
Philadelphia. Congress had previously adjourned its 
session to Baltimore, and thence to other places. From 
Elk Creek to Philadelphia is about sixty miles ; and 
the time occupied by the British army in its march 
was thirty days. When Franklin, then in France, 
heard that the British had "taken Philadelphia," he 
said that was not the way to state it — " Philadelphia 
had taken the British." 

The warlike stores of the Americans had been re- 
moved before the entry of the British forces. Wash- 
ington encamped at a point about twenty miles from 
Philadelphia. The British established a chain of posts 
above Philadelphia, from the Delaware to the Schuyl- 
kill, the main encampment being at Germantovvn. On 
the 4th of October Washington attempted a surprise. 
The British pickets were driven in upon the main 



250 Stories of American History. 

body, and at first the attack seemed almost a victory. 
But the steadiness of the trained British regiments, as 
they raUied and were re-enforced, compelled him to re- 
tire. The loss on each side was heavy, about eight 
hundred, but the returns are disputed. It has been 
said of this battle, that the British at the beginning 
were so nearly defeated as to learn respect for the 
Americans; and that the Americans were so nearly 
routed at the end, as to learn the absolute need of dis- 
cipline. 

Meanwhile stirring events were in progress at the 
North. In June, 1776, General John Burgoyne led a 
British force from Canada to invade the United States. 
The Canadas had now become a good base for opera- 
tions. Their adherence to Great Britain had been con- 
firmed by an invasion made by an American force under 
Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery, in the 
winter of 1775-76. Chambly, St. Johns, and Mont- 
real were talcen, and Quebec attacked. Before the 
latter place Montgomery fell. The invaders were de- 
moralized and retreated, rehnquishing all they had 
gained ; and the remainder of their force got back to 
the United States. Montgomery's name figures in 
the geography of the United States as the name of 
counties and of towns; and a monument is erected 
to his memory in St. Paul's churchyard. New York, 



The War of Independence. 251 

whither his remains were removed nearly fifty years 
afterward. 

Burgoyne's first step was to summon a council of 
the dreaded Six Nations of Indians, a large body of 
whom he took into the British service ; but he found 
these wild allies did him more harm than good. They 
brought in scalps as the first evidences of their loyalty ; 
and with all that Burgoyne could do he found it im- 
possible to keep them in order in battle, or to hinder 
them from savage deeds in the settlements ; all which 
made the British name still more hated. He took 
Ticonderoga, but soon fell into difficulties, having neg- 
lected to keep open his communication with Canada. 
His way led through difficult roads and marshy grounds, 
over which he could carry no supplies. He sent a 
large detachment to capture the stores of the Ameri- 
cans, said to be at Bennington. The force was attacked 
by General John Stark, who, it is said, called out to his 
men : " There are the red-coats ! We must beat them, 
or Molly Stark will be a widow ! " Mrs. Stark was not 
a widow. The red-coats were beaten off. The battle 
of Bennington took place on August i6th. The 
Americans took four or five hundred prisoners, a 
thousand stand of arms, and four pieces of artillery. 
The British loss is stated at nearly two hundred in 
killed and wounded, the American less than one 



252 Stories of A^nerican History. 



hundred. About the same time a British detachment 
assaulted Fort Schuyler, the western American post in 
New York, and were repulsed. The Indians ran 
away, and the British commander was forced to retreat. 
These wild allies were continually deserting, while 
their barbarities led crowds of volunteers to join the 
American army. 

On the 13th of September Burgoyne crossed the 
Hudson, about thirty-five miles above Albany. It re- 
quired six days to move ten miles, rebuilding bridges 
and repairing roads. On the 19th Burgoyne reached 
the camp of General Gates. It was laid out by 
Kosciusko, the Polish general, and its site was almost 
unassailable. After two days of fierce fighting, in 
which the advantage was with the Americans, and 
several days of skirmishing, Burgoyne was obliged to 
fall back to Saratoga ; and there, on the 1 7th, he sur- 
rendered. His suppHes were intercepted, and his men 
were starving. His retreat was cut off, and the 
Americans were coming to the aid of Gates by battal- 
ions. There was no place in Burgoyne's camp which 
was not covered by the artillery of the Americans ; and 
it is said that while the council of war was debating in 
the general's tent a cannon-ball swept across the table. 
The plan of the campaign had been that General 
Howe was to take Philadelphia, and march to the 



The War of Independence, 253 

north, to meet Burgoyne coming south. But Burgoyne 
was defeated before Howe entered Philadelphia ; and, 
though Sir Henry Clinton tried to reach him from 
New York, his hopes in that quarter failed. Burgoyne 
had no choice but to capitulate. The Americans 
suffered the troops to keep their personal baggage, and 
return to England on condition of their never serv- 
ing again in America. The prisoners were nearly six 
thousand ; the previous loss of men was over three 
thousand ; and the arms, artillery, and camp equipage 
were the property of the captors. Lady Harriet 
Acland went through the whole of this dreadful cam- 
paign in the English army, and when her husband was 
wounded passed into the American camp to nurse him, 
showing wonderful bravery and resolution throughout. 
Though General Howe entered Philadelphia in 
September, it was not till late in November that he 
was able to open communication with the fleet on the 
Delaware, which river the Americans had obstructed by 
forts and ships and sunken obstacles. The American 
army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, where 
they suffered severely for want of supplies and cloth- 
ing. Even officers came often upon parade wrapped 
in old blankets, and the feet of the shoeless soldiers 
left blood-stains in the snow. Nevertheless, they kept 
up such a show of strength that they were left unmo- 



2 54 Stories of American History. 

lested by the British. In their winter quarters in Phil- 
adelphia, with the countenance of such inhabitants as 
were still loyal to the crown, the winter passed in a 
round of festivities. 

The battle of Saratoga was the turning-point of 
the war. It made the French think the colonists no 
longer rebels, but people worth helping. Franklin, 
who had been in France with two other commissioners 
over a year without official recognition, now obtained 
it, and in February a treaty of amity and commerce 
was concluded between France and the United States. 
This treaty was coupled with another of eventual 
defensive alliance. In the following month Franklin 
was received by the King. The other commissioners 
wore the court dress ; the sturdy Franklin adhered to 
his republican simplicity. He was the popular idol of 
the Parisians ; and, at his reception by the Academy 
of France, he was addressed as the man who had 
"wrenched the lightning from the clouds and the 
scepter from tyrants." Sick, perhaps, of their own 
pomp and vanity, the Parisians were in a perfect fever 
of admiration of Franklin's straightforward simplicity. 



CHAP. XXIX.— THE WAR OF INDEPEND- 
ENCE. 

1779— 1781. 

/TV HE eventual treaty bet^veen the United States 
J- and France soon came in force. The French 
embassador in England announced to the British 
Ministry, in March, 1778, that the United States were 
in full possession of independence, that a treaty of 
commerce and amity had been concluded, that the 
King of France was determined to protect the lawful 
commerce of his subjects, and had taken measures for 
that purpose in concert with the United States. This 
was regarded as establishing a state of war. The 
British embassador was recalled from Paris. The 
British statesmen, in office and out, were divided. 
The great Earl of Chatham, who had opposed the war, 
was wakened to oppose what he deemed a dishonor- 
able peace ; and when the Duke of Richmond advo- 
cated the withdrawal of the British troops, the Earl 



256 Stories of American History. 

of Chatham, who had come 4own to the House, 
aware of what was to be done, ill and broken, rose 
and protested against yielding an inch of British 
ground. In the midst of his speech he tottered and 
fell back, in a fit of apoplexy, of which shortly after 
he died. 

In June, 1778, the British evacuated Philadelphia, 
crossing over to New Jersey, and marching to New 
York. The crossing of the State occupied a little 
over two weeks, and Washington followed, harassing 
the British. On this march occurred the battle of 
Monmouth, one of the most severely contested during 
the war. The British had the advantage during the 
early part of the day, the Americans later. Both ar- 
mies remained on the field ; but during the night the 
British retreated with such silence and skill, that their 
disappearance was not known till daylight. During 
this march the British lost two thousand men, includ- 
ing desertions. The retreat was inevitable, for a pow- 
erful French fleet, under the Count d'Estaing, was al- 
ready on its passage. Had he found Howe in Phila- 
delphia, and his fleet in the Delaware, the position 
would have been a serious one. D'Estaing arrived in 
July, and undertook to co-operate with the Americans 
in the siege of Newport, Rhode Island. Disputes 
arose between the American officers of the army and 



The War of Independe^tce. 257 



the commander of the French fleet. D'Estaing with- 
drew, and the siege was raised.. 

There was much distrust of the French among the 
Americans. Perhaps as citizens of the new repubhc, 
they had not quite forgotten their traditional disHke as 
British colonists often at war with their French neigh- 
bors. Heated debates took place in Congress, the un- 
defined powers of a legislative body without an execu- 
tive head causing frequent disputes. Meanwhile, in the 
progress of the war, savage things were done on either 
side. The country was, in many districts, demoralized. 
Marauders ranged themselves for plunder and the pur- 
poses of hate under both flags. An American, named 
John Butler, organized early in the war a band of trai- 
tors, Indians, and vagabonds, who dressed and painted 
like Indians, with which he harried the borders. In July, 
1778, he attacked the settlement of Wyoming, Penn- 
sylvania, with his band of " Rangers," as they called 
themselves. The settlers were overpowered, the Indi- 
ans took nearly three hundred scalps, and, having ca- 
pitulated, the survivors — men, women, and children — 
were permitted to fly, though savage ferocity murdered 
many fugitives. The houses were burned, and the set- 
tlement desolated. All along the frontier, the Indians 
were incited to attack the Americans, though some of 

the tribes refused to attack, and even joined them. 

17 



258 



Stones of American History. 



In the spring of 1780, Charleston, South Carohna, 
surrendered to Sir Henry CHnton, and the State was 
assumed to be again under the crown. But while 
many were wiUing to submit, or obeyed under con- 
straint, the spirit of resistance was still alive ; and 



< i\^\V \V ;[ 




General Mat ion and his Men. 



Generals Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter, the 
former of whom was called the " Swamp Fox," crept 
about in the woods and marshes, annoying the Brit- 
ish outposts, and attacking convoys and detachments. 
These men were more than mere partisans, and their 



The War of Independence, 259 

names are historic. As the tide of success ebbed and 
flowed, the British treated as deserters those among 
their prisoners who had been forced previously into the 
British service, or who had accepted submission, or 
taken the oath of allegiance. All these things mad- 
dened the South, and indicated the final defeat of the 
British arms. Meanwhile, at sea, British transports 
and private ships were captured by American priva- 
teers. Congress early in the war had both built na- 
tional vessels and authorized and commissioned priva- 
teers. Among these privateers, the most noted — a 
terror of the seas — was John Paul Jones. One ship 
which he commanded was named, after Franklin's 
" Poor Richard," almanac-maker, Bonhomine Richard, 
Washington had to be extremely patient and 
cautious, and to bear with many murmurs of those 
who complained that he did not gain any great vic- 
tories, like Gates at Saratoga, forgetting that Wash- 
ington's policy in preventing General Howe from 
reaching Philadelphia through New Jersey, and in 
impeding his march from the Chesapeake, had made 
Burgoyne's defeat possible. There were jealousies too 
among the generals, but in only one case did it rise 
to treachery. Benedict Arnold, a brave but fierce and 
selfish man, was long a subject of distrust ; and, as 
he claimed, of neglect. He had even been tried for 



26o Stories of American History, 

dishonesty. But his undisputed mihtary talent pro- 
cured for him the command of the fort at West Point, 
on the Hudson River. It was a most important point, 
commanding the approach to New York, then held by 
the British army, and keeping open the communication 
between New England and the West. Arnold opened 
a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, who had 
returned from Charleston to New York ; on the 23d 
of September Major John Andre, an English ofhcer, 
was stopped by three American scouts, as, clad in 
citizen's clothes, he was riding toward New York. 
His manner and replies aroused their suspicions, his 
offer of a large ransom confirmed them. He was 
searched, and concealed in his stockings were found a 
plan of the fortifications at West Point, a memorial 
from the engineer on the attack and defense of the 
post, and returns of the garrison cannon and stores. 
These were in Arnold's handwriting. Andre was de- 
tained, but permitted to send a letter to Arnold, who 
made his escape. Washington, returning from Con- 
necticut, turned aside to examine the condition of the 
works at West Point, and there first heard of Arnold's 
treachery after his flight. The first duty was to pro- 
vide for the safety of the post ; since the preparations 
for the completion of the plot, including the capture of 
Washington himself, were already in progress. On 



The War of Independence, 261 

the 29th Andre was brought before a board of officers, 
and unanimously adjudged a spy. The execution of 
the sentence was delayed until the 2d of October, at 
the request of Clinton, that representations might be 
made in behalf of the prisoner. The overtures were 
for an exchange. The answer was, that no one but 
Arnold could be received in exchange for Andre. 
This could not be, and Andre suffered. If the purpose 
of a spy be to obtain damaging information, by covert 
means, he had done it. Washington did not sit in the 
board which tried him. His remains were taken home 
to England and buried in Westminster Abbey. He 
was a youth of promise, and much beloved. So also 
was Nathan Hale, a graduate fresh from Yale College, 
who was executed as a spy in 1776, having been found 
within the British lines. In character and in standing 
they were equals, and their sad fate was the inexorable 
rule of war. 

Troubles came thick and fast on the Americans in 
the winter of 1780-81. There was neither pay nor 
food to be had for the soldiers. The Pennsylvania 
troops in their winter quarters in New Jersey revolted, 
from sheer suffering ; but were won back to their 
allegiance, and a large number discharged, as they 
claimed was their right. Two British emissaries sent 
from New York to corrupt them were hanged as spies. 



262 



Stories of American History, 



The New Jersey troops followed the bad example ; but 
it was deemed necessary to adopt sterner measures. 
Their camp was surrounded by a detachment of loyal 




The Army in Winter Quarters. 

troops ; three of the ringleaders were tried by drum- 
head court-martial, of whom two were shot and the 
other released. 

Gates, who had been appointed to the command of 
the American army in the South, had " changed his 
Northern laurels for Southern willows." In August, 



The War of hidependence. 263 

1780, he was routed by Cornwallis at Camden, South 
CaroHna. He was superseded by General Nathanael 
Greene. Greene was the son of a Quaker preacher in 
Rhode Island. At the beginning of the Revolution 
he renounced his Quaker principles, studied military 
tactics, and commanded the Rhode Island troops who 
joined Washington at Cambridge, which under his 
drill and discipline were among the best troops in the 
field. He deserved, gained, and kept the confidence 
of Washington, was early promoted, and had distin- 
guished himself in most of the leading battles in the 
war. He worked in boyhood as a blacksmith, but by 
diligence in study supplemented the little he had 
learned in a common school. When Greene reached 
his command in North Carolina, with about four 
hundred men, he found the skeleton of the Southern 
army, without artillery, stores, or discipline. To re- 
store the last required vigorous measures. The whole 
country was suffering under the cruelty of the partisan 
rangers, on both sides. 

A detachment of Greene's army, under General 
Daniel Morgan, encamped at a place called Cowpens 
in South Carolina, was attacked by a British force 
under Colonel Tarleton, January 17, 1781. The rout 
of the attacking force was complete, so skillfully 
were Morgan's men posted and led. The American 



264 Stories of America^i Histo7^y. 

loss in killed and wounded was less than a hundred ; 
the British, over three hundred, besides five hundred 
prisoners, and a large amount of military stores. Not- 
withstanding the victory, the Americans were com- 
pelled to retreat before the superior force of Cornvvallis. 
So ill shod were they that the ground was tracked 
with the blood from their wounded feet, the supply of 
blankets was one to four men, and that of food scanty 
and irregular. Greene halted at Guilford, North 
Carolina, and there, on the 15th of March, was attacked 
by Cornwallis. The British gained the victory, but 
with such terrible loss that it did them as much harm 
as a defeat. 

The pursuers now became the pursued. The 
royalists were dispirited, and the undecided rallied to 
the support of the Americans. Harassed by Greene, 
Cornwallis reached Wilmington, a seaport of North 
Carolina, with the wreck of his army, where a body of 
troops sent from Charleston awaited him. Greene 
left Cornwallis in Wilmington, and pursued his course 
to the south, now successful, now defeated ; till, by the 
month of September, the British held in three States — 
the CaroHnas and Georgia — only the three seaports, 
Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah. In Charles- 
ton the British commander completed the disaffection 
to the crown by the execution on the gallows of Isaac 



The War of Independejice. 265 

Hayne, a man widely known and esteemed. After 
the fall of Charleston, Hayne had accepted British 
protection. When the British were shut up and could 
no longer protect him, he joined his countrymen, was 
taken in arms, and hanged. 

In the beginning of 1781 Arnold, now holding a 
royal commission, was sent to Virginia with sixteen 
hundred men. Lafayette had made a visit to France, 
and had been received at home with high honors, 
being followed by the most hearty official commen- 
dation of the American Government. He returned to 
America ; not, as at first, a fugitive, but with high 
military rank and reputation. To Lafayette, Wash- 
ington intrusted the checking of Arnold. That trai- 
tor's stay was only long enough to burn Richmond, 
and indulge in a brief exhibition of ferocity. Corn- 
wallis arrived upon the scene, and, having no desire 
for his company, ordered him to New York. He 
retained the command of an expedition to Connecti- 
cut, w^here he burned New London, took a small fort by 
storm, massacred more than half the garrison after the 
surrender, killins: the commander with his own hand. 
And that is the last to be said of Benedict Arnold, ex- 
cept that the British officers, to their honor, never 
would receive him as a comrade. In St. Johns, New 
Brunswick, where he tried to reside, he was hung in 



266 Stories of American History. 

effigy. A British officer whom he challenged stood un- 
hurt before Arnold's fire, and declined to return it. " I 
leave yoii^l' he said, " for the hangman." 

Cornwallis, re-enforced, made war on the Virginians. 
Lafayette, re-enforced, contended with him. Virginia 
became the last battle-field. The French contingent, 
under Rochambeau, marched in by land. Cornwallis 
was driven to Yorktovv^n, on the Chesapeake, but the 
French fleet under De Grasse appeared in the bay, and 
cut off both the chances of relief and of escape. Wash- 
ington, who had sent troops forward, himself hurried to 
join the army, spending one night at his own home, 
Mount Vernon. On the 9th of October, 1781, the 
siege batteries against Yorktown being completed 
Washington himself applied the match to the first 
gun. The two allied armies pressed the siege. Once 
the British forces attempted a sally, but in vain. As a 
last resort, it was proposed to cross the York River 
and push to the North, but that was abandoned ; and 
to save useless bloodshed Cornwallis capitulated on 
the 19th, with seven thousand men as prisoners of war. 
The ships and naval stores were given to the French. 
The loss of the British during the siege was about five 
hundred, that of the Americans three hundred men. 
The investing armies numbered sixteen thousand men, 
seven thousand of whom were French. So closed the 



The War of Independence. 



267 




serious work of the war, 
though Indian raids and 
partisan difficulties con- 
tinued on the Western borders somewhat longer. 

The news came to Philadelphia at night. It is said 
that the officer who brought it was taken up for knock- 
ing too loud at the door of the residence of the presi- 
dent of Congress. In those days the watchmen called 
the hours, and the city was waked with the cry, " Past 
twelve o'clock, and Cornwallis is taken ! " 



CHAP. XXX.— THE AMERICAN 
REPUBLIC. 

1782— 1794. 

¥HE war in the United States was virtually closed 
by the battle of Yorktown. But the hostihties 
between Great Britain and the allies of the United 
States continued. Spain and Holland had been drawn 
into the quarrel, and their paths over the seas were 
no lono^er safe. The fleets and cruisers of the allied 
nations were to be found throughout the Atlantic. 
The vessels bringing home sugar and other West India 
products had to be guarded by ships of war ; and the 
settlements themselves were in danger, in spite of the 
great victories won by Admiral Rodney. The Span- 
iards took back the peninsula of Florida, which had 
not joined the thirteen colonies. The French had 
taken St. Vincent, St. Lucie, and Tobago, and several 
other of the lesser islands. Demerara was first taken 
by the Dutch, and then retaken by the English. 



The American Republic. 269 

Count de Grasse, with his fleet, after the great 
success in Chesapeake Bay, sailed to the south, mean- 
ing to make a grand descent on the two chief Eng- 
lish islands, Jamaica and Barbadoes, but Admirals 
Rodney and Hood were there to watch him. They 
could not save St. Kitts from being taken, but on 
the 5th of April, 1782, they fought a tremendous 
battle, which did immense damage to the French 
fleet. Captain Cornwaflis had the satisfaction of 
avenging his brother's disasters by taking the Ville 
de Paris, De Grasse's flagship, with the count him- 
self on board, and thirty-six chests of treasure, in- 
tended to pay the French troops which were to have 
taken Jamaica. The French lost nine ships, the Eng- 
lish none ; the French lost nearly three thousand men, 
the English not two hundred and fifty. Thus Eng- 
land could finish the war with a victory, and peace was 
made. 

The riorhts of England to the United States were 
given up, and their boundary traced where they 
touched on Canada and Nova Scotia. In the West 
Indies the islands seized on either side were given up 
except that the French kept Tobago. The Dutch 
and English likewise exchanged conquests, but the 
Spaniards kept Florida. The French were at that 
time attempting much in Guiana, or Cayenne, as they 



270 Stories of American History. 

called it, and settlements of intelligent and cultivated 
people were made there. The wonderful natural his- 
tory of the place began to excite interest in Europe, 
and, so far as so unhealthy a region could prosper, it 
flourished greatly. 

Sir Guy Carleton had been sent out to America in 
T782 to supersede Sir Henry Clinton, and he bore the 
olive-branch. Congress declined to treat except in 
conjunction with France, and in Paris ; but Sir Guy's 
conciliatory manners, and his putting a stop to the 
border cruelties of" rangers" and Indians, had a great 
and salutary effect. Peace already existed when, on 
November 30, 1782, the provisional treaty between 
Great Britain and the United States was signed in 
Paris. The final treaty, which awaited the negotia- 
tions between England and the Continental powers, 
was not signed till nearly a year later. But the pro- 
visional or preliminary treaty was accepted as conclu- 
sive. Early in April official intelligence was received 
of the signing of the treaty, and on the 1 9th of that 
month George Washington, in general orders, an- 
nounced the cessation of hostilities. He directed the 
chaplains with the several brigades to render thanks, 
and he did not forget to remind the army that the day 
was the anniversary of the battle of Lexington. " On 
such a happy day, which is the harbinger of peace, 



The American Republic. 271 

a day which completes the eighth year of the war, it 
would be ingratitude not to rejoice." 

In November the British army left New York, a 
city of which they had held possession ever since, 
seven years before, Washington had retreated before 
thern. The embarkation was leisurely made, permit- 
ting Americans who still adhered to the crown to take 
with them their effects. On the 25th an American 
force marched in and took formal possession. " Evac- 
uation Day " is still kept as a holiday. But bitterness 
against the " Tories " — as British loyalists were called 
— wore away. A stipulation of the treaty was that 
the loyalists should not be harassed with confiscation. 
The laws against them were generally repealed. 
Many returned to their homes ; and this lenity pre- 
vented the embarrassment of the new nation by a dis- 
affected faction. 

The United States had hitherto continued under 
the " Articles of Confederation " adopted during the 
war ; but it was soon discovered that a confederation 
without a head, and a legislature without an executive, 
would not serve. In 1787 a convention was called, 
under the sanction of Congress, but independent of it, 
to revise the articles. The convention met in Phila- 
delphia, and Washington was elected its presiding offi- 
cer. Eleven States sent delegates. After four months' 



272 Stories of American History. 

consultation a Constitution was pitt forth, to be in force 
when nine States should have ratified it. By the 
month of July, 1 788, ten States had accepted, and the 
others presently came in. At the first session of the 
new Congress of the United States, ten amendments of 
the Constitution were proposed and afterward adopted 
by the States. Two more were added at intervals of 
several years. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, 
relating to the altered condition of the slaves, and the 
adjustment of the country after the war of the rebellion, 
were adopted in 1865 and 1870. 

Each State has a separate government of its own, 
but for the management of national matters there are 
a national Legislature, or Congress, and a national 
Executive. The choice of a President is m.ade by 
electors chosen by the people. The term of office is 
four years, but the incumbent may be re-elected. Con- 
gress consists of two Houses — representatives elected 
by voters in their districts, and a Senate chosen by 
the Legislatures of the States. The representative's 
term is two years, the senator's six. Each State has 
two senators, and one is elected every three years, mak- 
ing the Senate a perpetual body, over which the Vice- 
President of the United States presides. The Vice- 
President, chosen at the same time as the President, 
must be taken from a different State. To prevent jeal- 



The America7i Republic. 273 

ousy, it was decided that the President should hve and 
Congress sit in a place belonging to no State, and a 
tract of country was ceded by Maryland and Virginia. 
It is called the District of Columbia, and includes the 
cities of Washington and Georgetown, the former being 
the seat of government. Washington was laid out by 
General Washington himself in 1 790, as the " Federal 
City." In 1800, after the death of Washington, Con- 
gress held its first session there, and the city took the 
name which it now bears. The District has now nearly 
two hundred thousand inhabitants, exclusive of Gov- 
ernment officials. The inhabitants proper have no 
vote in national affairs, and the office-holders who re- 
tain their State citizenship must go home to vote. 

All men are pronounced in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence " free and equal," but did this mean black 
men as well as white .? The Constitution left the 
question to the several States. But the words slave 
and slavery are not used in the original instrument. 
In the North, Negroes had been inherited from the 
old English and Dutch settlers, and their masters were 
rather ashamed of possessing them. In Massachusetts, 
a black woman named Elizabeth Freeman, commonly 
called Mum Bet, had, as early as 1766, appealed to 
the courts of law, and, with Theodore Sedgwick as her 

advocate, obtained her freedom and compensation for 
18 



2 74 Stories of American History. 

twenty-one years' service. She spent the rest of her 
life as a hired servant in the Sedgwick family. Many 
Negroes followed her example and were declared free. 
In 1777 a vessel from Jamaica, with several slaves on 
board, was brought into Boston as a prize. Her cargo 
was advertised, including the Negroes, but the authori- 
ties interfered, and the Negroes were released. In 
1783 a master was found guilty of assault for whipping 
a slave. The Bill of Rights, adopted in the State Con- 
stitution in 1 780, was appealed to on the trial, and the 
decision of the court put an end to slavery in Massa- 
chusetts. In 1787 one of the last acts of the Con- 
gress of the Confederation was to pass an ordinance by 
which slavery was forbidden in the territory northwest 
of the Ohio River. In 1820 the degree of latitude 36° 
30' was estabhshed as the line north of which slavery 
could not be established. Massachusetts was the only 
State, at the close of the Revolutionary War, in which 
slavery was illegal. Six more of the Northern States 
immediately or gradually abolished slavery, but the six 
Southern States clung to the system. 

Washington was the first President of the United 
States. He was chosen in 1789, receiving the votes 
of all the electors, and he lived in considerable state. 
" His Excellency " was tacitly adopted as the title of 
the President ; but Congress refused to authorize any 



The American Republic. 



275 



other title than " President of the United States," 
which has always been the official designation. Wash- 



illhiiiliijy 




hiauguration of 
Washington as 
President of the Uttited States. 

ington was inaugurated 
President on the 30th of 
April, in New York, which was 
then the seat of government. His 
journey from Mount Vernon to 
New York was a continued tri- 



276 Stories of American History, 

umphal progress. He landed amid salvos of artil- 
lery, and the hearty cheers of thousands. A carriage 
was prepared for him, but he preferred to walk to 
his lodgings. The streets through which he passed, 
attended by a long civil and military train, were 
decorated with flowers, banners, and all other pos- 
sible tokens of welcome. On the day of the inaugu- 
ration he was drawn by a single pair of horses, in a 
chariot prepared for the ceremony, on the panels of 
which were emblazoned the arms of the United States. 
Washington Irving, his biographer, refers to four and 
six horses with servants and outriders in rich liveries, 
with which the first President of the Republic some- 
times appeared in New York. Such style was not un- 
usual in the colonies before the Revolution. Washing- 
ton was passionately fond of that noble animal, man's 
best brute friend, the horse. The Revolutionary War, 
in the hands of its leaders, was not the destructive work 
of a mob, and old society customs were maintained. 
At Washington's levees, to which every one came in 
full dress, he wore a black velvet coat, with a white 
satin waistcoat, silver buckles at his knees, and his hair 
powdered and gathered into a bag. 

During Washington's administration, three more 
States were added to the Union. Vermont, the Green 
Mountain State, was separated from New York. Ken- 



The American Republic. 



277 



tucky (the Indian word for the Long River), the wild 
western part of Virginia, grew to a population large 
enough to become a State, though there was so much 
fighting with the In- 
dians that it was called 
"the dark and bloody 
ground." Among its 
oldest towns is Lex- 
ington. The settlers 
were laying out the 
place in 1 775, when the 
news of the battle 
of Lexington reached 
them in the wilderness, 
and they took the name 
for their new town. 
Tennessee was cut off 
from Carolina ; and 
thus one free State and two slave States were begun. 

All forms of religion were free ; none had any help 
from the State, none any advantage over another. In 
the procession at Philadelphia, in honor of the new 
Constitution, the Hebrew Rabbi walked between two 
ministers of different Christian denominations. But 
the Episcopal Church was at a great disadvantage; 
nearly all its places of worship had been closed during 




Pioneer Life in Kentucky. 



278 Stories of American History. 

the war. Many of its ministers and missionaries, espe- 
cially those who were English-born, felt compelled by 
their ordination vows to adhere to the crown. Most of 
them retired quietly. But the Rev. Mr. Boucher, of 
Annapolis, in Maryland, preached obedience to the ut- 
most. He was told that he would be punished if he 
went on reading the prayer for the king. His answer 
was from his pulpit, on which he had laid a brace of 
pistols. He took for his text Nehemiah's defiance of 
his enemies (vi, 10, 11), and his sermon ended with — 
"As long as I live will I, with Zadok the priest, and 
Nathan the prophet, proclaim ' God save the king ! ' " 
His property was confiscated, and he was driven back 
to England. The Episcopal Church shared in the en- 
mity against England. Even in Virginia, where it had 
been supported by the State, that protection had been 
withdrawn. Yet George Washington was a Church- 
man, and William White, an Episcopalian, was the first 
Chaplain of the Continental Congress in 1777. After 
the war the Episcopal Church could no longer look to 
England for clergymen, and there were no bishops in 
America to ordain them. Under existing laws no 
English bishop could consecrate unless the candidate 
would take the oath of supremacy. The Scottish bish- 
ops, not being thus bound, consecrated Samuel Sea- 
bury, the first American bishop, at Aberdeen, on the 



The American Republic, 279 

14th of November, 1784. On the 4th of February, 
1787, Parliament having passed a permissory Act, 
Bishop White, of Pennsylvania, and Provoost, of New 
York, were consecrated in Lambeth Chapel, the two 
Archbishops of England, and three others, uniting in 
the office of consecration. Bishop Madison, of Vir- 
ginia, was consecrated at the same place, on September 
19, 1790. In September, 1792, the first consecration 
of a bishop in the United States took place ; that of 
Bishop Claggett, for Maryland. In 1789 a Prayer- 
book, much resembling the English one, was set forth, 
and thus began the " Protestant Episcopal Church in 
the United States of America." Each diocese elects 
its own bishop, subject to the approval of the others ; 
and each enacts its own canons, in a convention of its 
clergy and elected laity ; and each parish chooses its 
own rector. The diocesan canons must be in harmony 
with the canons of the General Convention. That 
body meets triennially, and is composed of clerical and 
lay deputies chosen by the several dioceses, with the 
bishops who, holding their seats ex officio, are a perpet- 
ual body. The House of Bishops is presided over by 
their senior, and sits with closed doors ; while the de- 
bates in the House of Delegates are open. It may be 
noted that in the Act of Parliament authorizing the 
consecration of American bishops, there was a proviso 



28o Stories of American History. 

that no clergyman of the American Church should of- 
ficiate in England. This restriction was removed in 
1840. 

In Virginia, and the Carolinas, and Georgia, were 
the most Episcopalians ; and in the Carolinas there was 
a considerable Huguenot element. Pennsylvania was 
still Quaker, modified by Presbyterians and Episco- 
palians. In New York the Dutch Church had been 
firmly planted, but the Episcopal Church had many 
and influential adherents, as it had also in New Jersey. 
New England was congregational, or Independent, 
with an abiding leaven of Puritanism ; the Baptists 
being in church organization, congregational. The 
Presbyterians were influential, wherever they took 
hold ; and the Methodists were a rising body, their 
ministers having found adherents almost as soon in 
America as in England. Louisiana remained Roman 
Catholic. Maryland, though settled under the auspices 
of a Roman Catholic proprietary, gave Protestants 
equal rights, for her charter required it. There were all 
sorts and varieties of sects ; and the recoil from the 
free-thinking of France introduced in America the 
modern " revival of reliorion " — a revival of zeal with- 
out persecution — a religious and salutary contagion. 



CHAP. XXXL— THE REVOLUTION IN 
HAITI. 

1791— 1803. 

'HT^HE French had been very prosperous in the West 
-^ India isles, especially in their half of the large and 
fertile one of Hispaniola, or St. Domingo. There, as 
in all the other Indian isles, the population consisted 
of whites, who, if born there, were called Creoles ; of 
black slaves ; and of a colored race, the offspring of the 
other two, who were called Mulattoes. Mahogany, 
satin-wood, and other valuable timber, grew in the for- 
ests ; cotton, coffee, and sugar, in the plantations ; and 
the Creoles, both there and in Martinique, were very 
rich and prosperous, and, in general, were not bad mas- 
ters to their slaves. 

In Europe, however, the French Revolution had 
begun. The success of the American Revolution, and 
the sympathy with republicanism which the aid of 
France in the War of Independence had created, had 



282 Stories of A7nerican History. 

set the ideas of liberty at work. In the National 
Assembly the affairs of the colonies were taken up. 
In 1790 it was decreed that each colony, by its assem- 
blies freely elected, should express its wishes in regard 
to a national constitution. This opened the fearful 
war of races. The Mulattoes, though not slaves, were 
not recognized as citizens. The Creoles claimed the 
exclusive right to vote; the Mulattoes insisted that 
they had an equal right to the suffrage and to represen- 
tation. In 1 79 1 the French Assembly issued a decree 
in favor of the Mulattoes, conferring equality on all 
free persons of color. The Creoles, utterly shocked 
at this decision, had organized an Assembly of their 
own, and trodden the tricolored cockade under foot. 

While the Creoles and Mulattoes were contending, 
a fearful catastrophe impended over them. The Negro 
slaves were not considered in the matter, and were 
regarded as too ignorant to enter into the question. 
But soon reports came that the slaves were everywhere 
rising in arms ; and white people came hurrying into 
Cape Town, having scarcely escaped being murdered 
by their servants. All the women and children whom 
the ships could carry away were put on board, and all 
the Creoles took up arms to defend themselves. In 
the mean time the slaves moved about in the open 
country, gathering in numbers wherever they went. 



The Revolution in Haiti, 283 

burning and plundering the places where they had 
worked, and massacring whole families of the French. 
There were striking exceptions. The slaves of Count 
Lopinot rallied round him in a body, and at last came 
away with him to the British Island of Trinidad, where 
he obtained a grant of waste land, and made a new 
home with them. Another Negro saved his master's 
two little ones, of five and three years old, took them 
to Carolina, and there toiled hard himself to maintain 
them, and give them a good education. In spite of 
such instances of attachment, in two months' time two 
thousand whites were slain, one hundred and eighty 
sugar-plantations, and nine hundred of coffee and indigo, 
were ruined, and one thousand families were brought 
to poverty. The whites were everywhere driven into 
the cities, and there besieged. No less than ten 
thousand blacks perished in these attacks, but they 
still remained in force in the plains. 

In 1 79 1 commissioners arrived at Cape Town from 
France to endeavor to re-establish order. A general 
amnesty was proclaimed. The basis of the adjust- 
ment proposed to leave the internal affairs of the 
colony to its own Legislature. This was in effect re- 
voking the former decrees. But the planters abso- 
lutely refused any concessions whatever, even to the 
Mulattoes, and demanded the unconditional submission 



284 Stories of American History. 

of the slaves. Of course this made* the colored people 
desperate. The Mulattoes now sided with the Ne- 
groes, and the war became more horrible than ever, 
the whites treating the blacks like wild beasts, and the 
Negroes retaliating with the most horrid barbarities. 
The blacks had now an organized force of forty thou- 
sand men, under Frangois Dominique Toussaint, who 
was surnamed L'Ouverture. He was a truly great 
man, able as a general, competent as an organizer, and 
humane as a soldier, repressing the violence of his fol- 
lowers. He was a born slav^e, but did not join the 
insurgents till he had secured the escape of the agent 
of the estate and his family, from whom he had received 
kind treatment. 

In Europe things scarcely less barbarous were hap- 
pening. The National Convention had succeeded the 
Assembly, and the frightful guillotine was in action. 
The Republic had been proclaimed, and Louis XVI 
had been executed, January 21, 1793. The Jacobins 
classed the hapless planters of Haiti with the enemies 
of the Republic ; and irritated at them for not having 
submitted to the measures proposed, the Convention 
sent out a new commission, after revoking the powers 
which had been conferred on the Legislature of the 
island. A quarrel arose between the sailors of the 
French fleet at Cape Town and the Mulatto popula- 



The Revolution in Haiti. 285 

tion ; French politics entered into the disturbance, 
royaHsts and Jacobins, whites and Mulattoes made the 
streets run with blood, and the Negroes from outside 
the town rushed in ; and in slaughter and desolation 
Cape Town was reduced to ashes. Immediately upon 
this event the French commissioners published a de- 
cree proclaiming freedom to all blacks who should 
enroll themselves under the banner of the French Re- 
public. Toussaint with his troops passed into the ser- 
vice of the French, and Negro slavery was abolished 
forever. 

And now appeared the British upon the scene. 
England and the French Republic were at war, and 
Sir John Jervis, having captured Guadeloupe, Mar- 
tinique, and most of the other French islands, arrived 
at Port au Prince, and espoused the cause of the 
planters against the Negroes. He occupied Port au 
Prince, and commenced a systematic warfare for the 
reduction of the island. Toussaint, however, at the 
head of the French troops and the Negro forces, aided 
by the yellow fever, the worst enemy of the English, 
pressed the invaders back, and they were forced to 
leave the island and its deadly fever to the manage- 
ment of Toussaint. 

A frightful war now broke out between the Mulat- 
toes and Negroes, which ended in the defeat of the 



286 Stories of America7i History. 

former, their murder by thousands and their expulsion 
from Haiti. The Spanish end had been ceded to 
France by Spain, and Toussaint, who held his appoint- 
ment still as an officer of the French Republic, was 
acknowledged in the Spanish colony ; and in 1800 his 
authority was admitted through the whole island. Fie 
sent an envoy to Napoleon, now First Consul, who re- 
turned with a decree from Napoleon, confirming Tous- 
saint in his command as general-in-chief, and taking 
Haiti under the shield of the last French Constitution. 
In a proclamation the First Consul called on the 
"brave blacks to remember that France alone had 
recognized their freedom." The leading chiefs of the 
island met and drew up a constitution. They conferred 
on Toussaint unlimited power, under the title of Presi- 
dent and Governor for life, with the right to name his 
successor. This constitution was sent to Paris, with a 
letter to Napoleon beginning with the words, " The 
First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites." 

The " First of the Whites " did not quite like this. 
Peace was made in 1801 between England and France. 
The French islands were restored to France. The 
first use Napoleon made of the peace with England 
was to send out a great fleet and army under his broth- 
er-in-law. General Le Clerc, to reduce Guadeloupe and 
Haiti. In Guadeloupe the same scenes had been en- 



The Revolution in Haiti. 287 

acted as in Haiti. The Mulattoes had risen against 
the Creoles, and the Negroes against both, and while 
the factions were at war the French arrived. The Mu- 
lattoes, in terror of the Negroes, joined the French, 
and the old state of things, including slavery, was re- 
stored. Warned by these things, Toussaint prepared 
to resist, and with Henri Christophe, his able heuten- 
ant, kept up a guerrilla warfare. Both sides grew 
wearied of the contest, and the French succeeded in 
detaching, by a separate treaty, Toussaint's principal 
officers, who accepted rank and pay in the French ser- 
vice ; but Toussaint himself disdained the bribe, and 
retired to his farm on the faith of a treaty. The yel- 
low fever now broke out among the French, and Le 
Clerc, anxious to complete his secret instructions to 
seize and transport the black leaders, betrayed Tous- 
saint by an invitation to a personal interview. The 
black First Consul fell into the trap, was seized and 
sent in chains to France, where he was taken to the 
Temple Prison. He appealed to Napoleon, but he 
was pitiless ; and, more cruelly than if he had caused 
him to be shot, he sent this child of the tropics to the 
castle of Joux, in the coldest part of the Jura. He 
was shut in a damp cell, with only straw for his bed, 
and scanty food; and there, in the winter of 1803, he 
was found dead in the straw. 



288 Stories of American History. 

Maddened by the restoration 'of slavery in Guade- 
loupe, the insurgents rose again in Flaiti. The black 
chiefs who had gone over to the French revolted 
again. On the renewal of the war between England 
and France in 1803, the blacks were supplied with arms 
by the British cruisers. But the yellow fever broke 
out and General Le Clerc was one of its victims. The 
remains of the French troops made their escape. The 
English cruisers made havoc of their fleet, which was 
almost completely destroyed, and, of a force of thirty- 
five thousand men sent out under Le Clerc, scarce 
seven returned to France. Dessalines, one of Tous- 
saint's generals, was crowned emperor in 1804, and 
attacked and killed by Christophe in 1806. Chris- 
tophe was proclaimed as Henry I of Haiti in the 
same year, and thus was the old Indian name resumed. 
Christophe, in his turn, was conquered by a Mulatto 
chief named Boyer, and killed himself rather than be 
made prisoner. Boyer united the whole island under 
one government in 1821 ; but in 1843 the Negroes 
rose in insurrection and forced him to flee the island. 
After a struggle, a Negro, named Soulouque, had him- 
self proclaimed emperor, and was chiefly distinguished 
for a fearful massacre of the Mulattoes. In 1858 he 
was forced to abdicate. The island was divided into 
two republics, by no means friendly, and so remains. 



The Revolutiojz in Haiti. 289 

Santo Domingo, largest in area, is least in population. 
The prevailing religion is Roman Catholic ; but Haiti 
has also a Protestant bishop, colored, a missionary of 
the Episcopal Church in the United States. 

Thus upon the first place in America where slavery 
was introduced, and at a time when its sordid results 
were most profitable, first fell the disastrous conse- 
quences. Except in Haiti and Guadeloupe, the Ne- 
groes did not rise ; and the French kept Cayenne as a 
place to which the proscribed who escaped the guillo- 
tine in Paris could be transported to die in the swamps. 
Among the historical personages connected with these 
events was Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. 
She was born in Martinique, and was early taken to 
France to marry the Viscount Beauharnais. She re- 
turned to Martinique to attend her sick mother, but, 
when these troubles took place, she made her escape 
to France. There, in 1794, her husband was guillo- 
tined, and Josephine herself was among the proscribed. 
She barely escaped, to become the wife of Napoleon 
Bonaparte. The sharp, quick suffering of the guillo- 
tine might have been less than the lengthened torture 
of the repudiated wife. 
19 






CHAP. XXXIL— SPANISH AMERICA. 



1806— 1808. 

cIj^OR two hundred years Spain had quietly pos- 
-^ sessed her American colonies, which reached 
from California on the north down to Paraguay in the 
south, embracing in name all the southern continent 
west of the famous papal line of demarkation. 

These colonies were managed by a Board at home 
called the Council of the Indies, at which the king was 
supposed to preside. The Council appointed vice- 
roys to Mexico and Peru. All the northern provinces 
were under Mexico, the southern under Peru ; and 
the viceroys were like kings, living in very great splen- 
dor, and with a nobility sometimes descended from the 
old Aztecs and Peruvians, with whom the Spaniards 
had intermarried. Everything was in the power of the 
Council of the Indies. Even the Pope could only act 
on the American Church through this Council, and it 
appointed the archbishops and bishops. 



Spanish America. 291 

All notion had been lost in Spain of ruling her de- 
pendencies for their good. All that was thought of 
was how to get as much out of them as possible. The 
gold, silver, and quicksilver mines belonged to the 
crown, and w^ere wrought for the king's benefit. To- 
bacco was grown and sold only by Government in 
Cuba and the other islands. Licenses had to be bought 
for growing sugar, coffee, cocoa, and indigo. Flax and 
hemp might not be grown at all, because the colonists 
were to buy their clothes from the mother-country. 
No trade with any foreign country was allowed ; no 
foreign vessels could find shelter in the ports ; and such 
articles as Spain could not supply were only permitted 
to be brought in by merchants after paying a huge 
price for a license. Even in Spain, no ports but Seville 
and Cadiz might trade with the New World, and 
there were very heavy taxes for this privilege. 

All this was bad enough in itself, but it was made 
worse by the Council's habit of selling every office to 
the highest bidder. Out of fifty Mexican viceroys 
only one had been born in the country, and all offices 
were so entirely given to the Spaniards that it was 
hardly possible for the Creoles to obtain justice on any 
suit ; while in common life they were violently and 
hardly treated by these officials and the soldiers. 

The Church was in a dreadful state. It had been 



292 Stories of American History. 

richly endowed, and the people accepted whatever was 
taught them. The bishops, however, being appointed, 
as we have seen, by the Council for money, were sel- 
dom faithful. They let the parish clergy be ignorant, 
careless, and vicious ; and of course the people were 
worse, and added thereto horrible murderous ferocity, 
especially where, as in Mexico and La Plata, the Span- 
ish blood had been mixed with the native, and pre- 
served the bad qualities of both. There was super- 
stition enough in Spain, but in America it was grosser 
still. Shrines of images said to work miracles were 
set up, and the worship paid to them could be called 
nothing but idolatry. The Council of the Indies 
bought indulgences from Rome wholesale, and sold 
them in America at their own price. Such a state of 
things could only be kept up by ignorance on the part 
of the people, and the Inquisition was in full force, pro- 
hibiting all learning more modern than the Reforma- 
tion, and seizing all books that could open people's 
minds. There was scarcely any occupation for those 
who were not forced by slavery to work, except gam- 
bling in various forms, especially on fighting-cocks and 
horse-races. There were perpetual quarrels, which the 
knife or the pistol was generally used to settle. 

Never had a trust been more misused than that 
which the Spanish kings sincerely believed had been 



Spanish America, 293 

committed to them by the dispensation of Heaven. 
Could it be without effect that the English colonies, 
on provocation that was a mere trifle compared with 
such oppression, had broken from the mother-country ? 
The very few who were aware of the fact began to be 
stirred. First of all awoke Francisco de Miranda, a 
youth of good family in Caraccas, a seaport town in 
Venezuela, and an officer in the army at that place. 
When only twenty years old he had set out on a jour- 
ney on foot through the whole of Spanish South 
America. In 1783 he visited the United States, and 
contrived to get into correspondence with Washington 
and Lafayette, whom he made his models. Thence he 
v/ent to Europe, and began again his travels on foot, 
and visited most of the countries in Europe, especially 
Spain, which he found in such a rotten state of decay 
that he was the more determined to break from it. 
On his return to South America he talked so much 
of the wrongs his country had suffered that he was ac- 
cused of revolutionary intentions, and to avoid being 
arrested he escaped to the West Itidian Islands, and 
thence to England. He visited Russia, where the 
Empress Catharine wanted him to enter her service, 
but he preferred joining his friend Lafayette in France, 
which was in the midst of the Revolution. A com- 
mand in the French army was given him, but he was 



294 Stories of American History, 

unsuccessful, and was twice before the Revolutionary 
Tribunal. Escaping with his life, he repaired to 
England, and tried to interest Mr. Pitt in the free- 
dom of South America. Spain and Portugal had 
been forced to ally themselves with France, and 
thus were reckoned the enemies of England. This 
cut their colonies off from much intercourse with 
home, for no fleet could stand against the British, 
and almost all the islands had been seized by the Brit- 
ish navy. 

In 1806 Admiral Sir Home Popham and General 
Beresford, without orders from home, crossed from the 
Cape of Good Hope and seized Buenos Ayres, on the 
Rio de la Plata. Thence they sent home a million of 
dollars, and announced that the land of gold was found. 
But the Guachos, a fierce race of half-savage herdsmen, 
who drove the cattle of the plains in desperate rides on 
their wild horses, rallied under Liniers, a French officer, 
crossed the river in a fog, and attacked Beresford in 
Buenos Ayres. There was a terrible battle from house 
to house, ending in all the English in the town being 
made prisoners, though Admiral Popham continued to 
blockade the river. Re-enforcements were sent out to 
him, but the Spanish colonists defeated them, and re- 
covered their city. This affair is regarded as important, 
since it showed the colonists that they could contend 



Spanish America. 295 

with a European force, and planted the germs of cour- 
age for the future revolution. 

Miranda, finding that Mr. Pitt would not help him, 
came to the United States in 1806. The relations 
between the States and Spain were by no means 
friendly. The purchase of Louisiana from the French 
had caused disputes about the boundary of Florida. 
President Jefferson's government was no doubt in 
sympathy with Miranda, and so was popular opinion, 
but no open government aid or recognition was given 
him. He made preparations, with a show of secrecy, 
for an expedition to Caraccas ; and, while the expe- 
dition was fitting out in New York, resided some time 
in Washington. He bought, or chartered, a ship called 
the Leander with the aid of numerous ardent young 
men who called themselves " sympathizers," and en- 
listed as volunteers two or three hundred men. With 
these he sailed for St. Domingo, where he obtained 
two smaller vessels as transports. The Spanish gov- 
ernor had notice, and sent out a ship of war, which cap- 
tured the transports, with some sixty men on board. 
The Leander escaped to Trinidad, and the English 
captains there undertook to protect Miranda's landing 
in Venezuela. He took possession of two or three 
towns on the coast. But it was yet in vain ; the 
Spanish force was too strong, and the indolent minds 



296 



Stories of American History. 



of the Creoles were not yet sufficiently stirred to make 
them rise to join Miranda, so that he was forced to re- 
turn to Trinidad, and the expedition was broken up. 
Meanwhile, the promoters of the enterprise were pros- 
ecuted in the United States, to avoid compromising 
the Government with Spain. They were, however, ac- 
quitted. 




CHAP. XXXIIL— THE REVOLT IN SPAN- 
ISH AMERICA. 

1807 — 1813. 

"A pAPOLEON had entirely cowed the King of 
JM Spain, Charles IV, who made no objection 
when, in 1807, a proposal was made to him to divide 
Portugal with Spain. The reigning Queen of Portu- 
gal, Maria I, was insane, and her son Joao (John VI), 
who ruled in her name, made no resistance to the in- 
vaders, but shipped his mother and all his family off for 
Brazil, and set up a court at Rio de Janeiro. 

Next, on pretense of settling a family quarrel, Na- 
poleon invited the King of Spain and his son to Ba- 
yonne, and kept them there, in captivity, while he gave 
their throne to his brother Joseph. Neither the Span- 
iards nor Portuguese would submit to this monstrous 
injustice ; and the English coming to their aid, carried 
on the Peninsular War against the French ; while a 
junta, or committee, at Seville represented the Spanish 
Government. 



298 Stories of American History. 

The battle of Trafalgar had so* crippled the French 
fleet that Napoleon's whole power was on land. 
Thus the English mastered all the islands belonging 
to France or its allies. In Cuba a Cortes, or council, 
swore to preserve the colony for the true Spanish 
king, Charles IV. In Martinique the Negroes tried 
to make a rising like that in Haiti ; but French and 
English joined to prevent such horrors, and it, with 
the other French islands, was held by England. So 
also were the Dutch isles, together with French and 
Dutch Guiana, Holland having been by this time ab- 
sorbed by France. 

The Spanish-American colonies acted in diverse 
manners. None would have any concern with Bona- 
parte, but in each of them there was one party, chiefly 
of Spanish officials, who held by the old country, and 
another of Creoles, who thought this the time for 
breaking loose. Only in Peru, as early as in 1806, an 
officer tried to raise the people ; but no one would at- 
tend to him, and he was put to death at Cuzco, declar- 
ing that no one who was not in office knew the wick- 
edness of the Spanish Government toward those under 
it, and that a reckoning must follow. 

In Mexico the national party called on the govern- 
or, Don Jose Ituregarry, to call an assembly ; but the 
Spanish officials prevented this by throwing him into 



The Revolt in Spa^iish America. 299 

prison, under charge of wanting to become a king. 
They carried on the government against the increasing 
disaffection for two years, but there was a bitter hatred 
growing up against the name of Spaniard, and a fellow 
feeling between the Indians, Mulattoes, and Creoles 
was growing stronger. 

The outbreak came at last, in 18 10, begun by the 
Curate of Dolores, Miguel Hidalgo — a little, thin, white- 
haired man. He and his people surprised the Span- 
ish officials and burned their houses, and the villagers 
around began to join them. They took several small 
towns, and wherever they found a Spanish house they 
plundered and destroyed it, often murdering the family. 
They gathered numbers as they went on, till sixty 
thousand had come together, and marched upon the 
city of Mexico. 

The viceroy, Don Francisco Venegas, sent for a 
famous image of the Blessed Virgin called Nuestra 
Sefioj^a de los Ramedios, and having had it placed in 
the cathedral, went thither in full uniform, placed his 
staff in Our Lady's lap, and besought her to take com- 
mand of the city. The tidings had such an effect on 
the devoutly superstitious insurgents that they turned 
aside to their hills without firing a shot. The troops 
followed, and twice defeated them. Hidalgo was cap- 
tured while trying to go to procure supplies from the 



300 Stories of American History. 

United States, and was shot July 27, 181 1 ; but the 
wild peasantry continued to keep up an outlaw warfare 
from their refuge in the forests. 

Miranda, in that same year, 18 10, landed again in 
Venezuela, hoping to stir the people. He gained an 
important assistant in Don Simon Bolivar, a man of 
good birth at Caraccas, who had been educated in 
Madrid, and had traveled through Europe. There 
he married a Spanish lady, who died of yellow fever 
immediately upon her arrival at his native home. He 
visited the United States after the death of his wife, 
and was so struck with their institutions that he joined 
Miranda with heart and soul. A Junta, or committee 
of government, was summoned, in which all the prov- 
inces under the Spanish captain-general were repre- 
sented. This Junta besran issuino: its decrees in the 
name of the King of Spain, who was held captive by 
Napoleon ; but the Spanish colonial officials, declining 
to join in what was a revolutionary movement, were 
thrown into prison. An appeal was made by Bolivar 
to England ; but England had enough to do in aiding 
Spain to get clear of the Bonapartes, and declined to 
interfere, especially as Spain, represented by her juntas, 
was the ally of England. Blanco White, an able man, 
half Spanish, half English, published in London a 
Spanish journal, in which he pleaded the example of 



The Revolt in Spanish America. 301 

the American Revolution to show that it was vain to 
suppose that the old severe yoke could ever be reim- 
posed. But the Cortes in Spain were furious, and it 
was determined to force the old system on the settle- 
ments. 

Upon this, on the 15th of July, 181 1, Venezuela 
declared itself independent, and the war began with the 
Spaniards who held by the mother-country, commanded 
by General Monteverde. In the midst, on the 26th 
of March, 18 12, Maundy-Thursday, there was a most 
frightful earthquake, which almost destroyed the 
town of Caraccas, and killed twenty thousand people, 
besides those who died of hunger and misery after- 
v/ard. The people took this as a token of the wrath 
of Heaven, and lost heart. Bolivar was in command 
of the citadel of Puerto Cabello. The fortress was 
given up by treachery, and he had to surrender. 
Miranda also was forced to yield, and contrary to 
promise was treated as a prisoner, and sent to Spain, 
where he died in the dungeons of the Inquisition. 
Bolivar would have had the same fate, but he had 
timely warning and fled to Curagoa. 

In the south. Prince John of Portugal had laid 
claim to Buenos Ayres, but in vain. The Viceroy Cis- 
tieros kept him out, but could not maintain the Spanish 
power. His secretary, Mariano Moreno, became the 



302 Stories of American History. 

leading spirit of a Junta, which, in May 1810, made a 
declaration of independence. Montevideo would not 
join it, and the whole country fell into a dire state of 
utter confusion and lawlessness. 

Things went on in the same fashion in Chili on the 
west coast. There were no nobles there, but there had 
been much less mixture of the Spaniards and Indians. 
The colonists were chiefly Biscayan mountaineers, and, 
as the climate is temperate, they had not lost their 
vigor and energy. The Indians were civilized and 
intelligent, and the Spanish system never was felt so 
severely on the west as on the east coast ; so that, but 
for the fall of the kingdom at home, there might have 
been no revolt. In April, 181 1, however, independence 
was declared, a Junta, appointed at Santiago, and a 
young man named Juan Jose Carrera made general. 

But Peru had never revolted, and troops came from 
thence, who, though twice defeated by Carrera, reduced 
Chili to obedience in 18 13. Thus, it may be con- 
venient to remember that, in i8io-'ii, there were four 
declarations of independence — in Mexico, Caraccas, 
Buenos Ayres, and Santiago, the chief cities of all the 
vSpanish possessions except Cuba and Peru ; and that, 
in two years, all the republicans had been defeated 
and reduced, except those in the city of Buenos Ayres, 
and wanderers everywhere in the hills and plains. 



¥ 



CHAP. XXXIV.— THE LAKE WAR. 

i8i2 — 1814. 

HE two great men to whom the United States 
owed most, lived to see the nation prosperous. 




Mount Vernon. 



304 Stories of American History. 

Franklin lived to be eighty-four, and died in 1790. 
The French revolutionary leader said of him that " he 
was the sage whom two worlds claim as their own." 
He died while Washington was President. After his 
second election, having served eight years, the good 
general refused to be elected a third time. He retired 
to Mount Vernon, where he died, full of years and 
honors, in 1 799. As Congress declared, he was " first 
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his coun- 
trymen." The centennial of his birthday, February 22, 
1832, was duly honored by the nation, and the day is 
still observed as a holiday. To him John Adams and 
Thomas Jefferson succeeded ; and it is worthy of note 
that these two great men died on the 4th of July, 1826, 
within a few hours of each other. Both were members 
of the committee which reported the Declaration of 
Independence, fifty years before. 

Two chief inventions secured the power of America. 
Eli Whitney, a Massachusetts schoolmaster in Georgia, 
seeing the trouble and loss of time in separating the 
cotton-seeds from the wool, invented a machine called 
a gin, which made the process so cheap and easy that 
Carolina and Georgia could send out cotton to all the 
world. But this made the slaves who cultivated it so 
valuable that there was less chance than ever of their 
being set free in the South. 



The Lake War, 



305 



In 1807, too, Robert Fulton, of Pennsylvania, 
launched his first steamboat on the Hudson, and al- 




I'irst Steamboat on the Hudson. 



though for a long time steam was only used for short 
distances, it did much to make the large country of dis- 
tant States communicate more readily within itself 

During the great struggle that England had made 
with France, each of the two powers had forbidden 

neutral nations to trade with the other, and though the 

20 



3o6 Stories of American History. 

United States did not get concerned in the quarrel, 
their ships were seized by the English if they traded 
with the French, and by the French if they traded 
with the English. Moreover, the English men-of-war 
claimed the right of searching all American vessels, and 
pressing into their own service any Englishman whom 
they found sailing under another flag. As it was not 
always easy to tell an Englishman from an American, 
and the captains were not particular, it was said that 
full a thousand Americans had been forced to fight in 
the British navy. Quarrels could not but arise, and at 
last, in 1812, when James Madison was President, war 
was declared between the mother and the daughter 
countries. 

The Americans went from Detroit, in Michigan, to 
attack Maiden in Canada, accomplished nothing, and 
returned. They were followed by the English General 
Brock, and the American commander surrendered. 
The English then occupied the post of Detroit, and 
indeed the whole Territory. This was in July, 1812. 
In October of the same year a force of a thousand 
men crossed from New York to attack Kingston in 
Canada. This battle is known in history as that of 
Lundy's Lane. After hard fighting the victory fell into 
the hands of the English. In this affair General Brock 
was killed, and the loss on both sides was terrible. 



The Lake War. 307 



In the month of August, 181 2, occurred the first 
important success of the American navy. The frigate 
Constitution captured the Gttei^ridre after an action so 
sharp, though short, that the prize was burned. But 
the most remarkable fight was in 18 13, between the 
English Sha7i7ton, a thirty-eight-gun ship, and the 
Chesapeake, an American with the same number of 
guns, but much better " found " as sailors say, with the 
newest improvements. The Chesapeake had an old 
quarrel with England. Vessels of war, as well as mili- 
tary regiments, have their traditions. As long before 
as 1807 an English ship, the Leopard, had claimed the 
right to search the Chesapeake for deserters, and on a 
refusal had fired, killed four men and wounded sixteen. 
The Chesapeake was unprepared. The commander 
indignantly hauled down his colors, and offered his 
vessel a prize to the English. But the English com- 
mander refused to accept a surrender, which would have 
been the opening of war. He boarded the Chesapeake 
and took from her crew four men. Three of them 
proved to be Americans, the fourth was hanged. The 
British Government disavowed the admiral's orders, 
under which the Leopard had acted, recalled the ad- 
miral, and returned two of the three Americans, the 
other having died. But the affair added to the irrita- 
tion ; and the relations of the two countries grew more 



3o8 Stories of A^nerican History. 

and more unpleasant, while the war party in America 
grew in strength from the popular excitement, until 
hostilities resulted. When the Skan?ion, which had 
taken and destroyed twenty-five prizes, came and lay 
off Boston Harbor, waiting for a ship to come out, 
and Captain Broke sent in a written challenge to 
the American fleet. Captain Lawrence, in the Chesa- 
peake, sailed out to fight a sort of sea-duel. It was 
a fierce and desperate engagement. Lawrence fell, 
mortally wounded, crying out, " Don't give up the 
ship ! " The ship was taken, though Broke was se- 
verely wounded. Captain Lawrence died five days 
after the battle, and was buried by his captors with 
military honors. 

The dying words of Lawrence became a naval 
motto. A brig built by the Americans on Lake Erie 
was called after him, and on her signal flag were em- 
broidered the words of the dying captain. The Law- 
rence was the flag-ship of Commodore Perry, who 
commanded a squadron of nine vessels, carrying from 
twenty guns to one only. Opposed to him was the 
English squadron of six vessels, and it is hard to com- 
pare the relative strength ; but it is safe to say that 
the men on each side behaved gallantly. Perry's ship 
was shattered, and he was forced to go to another in 
an open boat. But he won the victory, and he had 



The Lake War, 



309 



the honor of being the only man to whom an entire 
British squadron ever surrendered. 

Following the engagement on Lake Erie came, in 




Pe)iy Laving his Fla^-Ship at 
the Battle of Lake Erie. 

^P October, the " Battle 
^ of the Thames." The 

Thames is a river of 
Canada, nearly opposite Detroit in Michigan. Gen- 
eral William Henry Harrison, Governor of Mich- 
igan, and afterward President of the United States, 
seeking to recover his Territory, invaded Canada. 
With the aid of Perry's fleet as transports, he landed 



310 



Stories of American History, 



his troops, met General Proctor, and defeated him. 
In this battle Tecumseh was slain. Previously to the 
breaking out of the hostilities between England 
and America, this famous chieftain was making war 







Fall of Tecumseh. 



upon the United States on his own account, and was 
defeated by General Harrison at Tippecanoe. He 



The Lake War, 311 



joined the British cause, and it is supposed that it was 
by the hand of Colonel R. M. Johnson that the brave 
Indian fell. The remote consequence of this battle 
was that Colonel Johnson became Vice-President of 
the United States in 1837, and Harrison President in 
1 84 1. Harrison died in one month after his inaugu- 
ration. The rally ing-cry in the election of Johnson 
and of Harrison included their military services. De- 
troit was evacuated by the British upon the ap- 
proach of Harrison. An expedition of the Ameri- 
cans against Montreal in this same year was a 
humiliating failure. 

Admiral Cochrane, with an English fleet, having 
on board General Ross and four thousand men, en- 
tered the Chesapeake in August, 1814. They landed, 
unopposed, at a point about fifty miles from Washing- 
ton, and met their first repulse at Bladensburg, on 
the Potomac, where an American force of about one 
thousand regulars and five thousand miUtia awaited 
them, hoping to save the city of Washington. It was 
a hard fight, and there was much loss on both sides ; 
but at last the Americans were forced back, and were 
obliged to leave Washington to its fate. General 
Ross burned the President's house and the Capitol, 
with many valuable papers and records. It was an un- 
generous deed, but the English had not yet got over 



312 Stories of American History. 

their bitterness of feeling, and still viewed the Ameri- 
cans as successful rebels. The English troops, on the 
night of the day after their entry into Washington, 
silently evacuated the city, leaving their camp-fires 
burning, and, reaching the point where they had land- 
ed, re -em barked. Their severely wounded were left in 
Washington. 

On the 13th of September the British forces land- 
ed at North Point, on the Patapsco River, about four- 
teen miles from Baltimore. In a skirmish General 
Ross was killed. The Americans retreated, but formed 
again. A second and sharper encounter took place, 
but as Baltimore was approached the siege of the city 
seemed impossible and was given up. The fort guard- 
ing the approach to Baltimore by water was bombard- 
ed by the fleet, without making any serious impression 
upon it, though the fire was kept up for twenty-four 
hours. Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer and 
poet, who had gone on board one of the English ves- 
sels, was detained through the bombardment, and com- 
posed during the night the famous American lyric, 
" The Star-Spangled Banner." An attempt was made 
during the night of the 14th to land troops from 
barges, but they were beaten off. The commander 
received a mortal wound, and in the desolate retreat 
slowly bled to death as he was borne away. The at- 



The Lake War. 313 



tack on Baltimore was abandoned, and the English 
fleet withdrew from the Chesapeake. 

On the lakes the struggle still continued, whence 
this is sometimes called the Lake War. There was a 
battle on Lake Champlain, in which the Americans 
gained a complete victory, and this prevented Sir 
George Prevost from invading the States. The war 
on the Atlantic coast continued, and many seaports, 
North and South, were attacked or laid under contribu- 
tion. In Florida the English took possession of Pen- 
sacola, which was still Spanish, and made it a military 
and naval station. Thence they attacked Fort Boyer 
in Alabama, but were driven off. General Andrew 
Jackson marched upon Pensacola, for this breach of 
neutrality, and entered the place without difficulty. 
The English blew up the forts they had occupied, and 
sailed away. 

Then the English made an attempt against New 
Orleans, in the hope that the half- French inhabitants 
might like the American Republic no better than the 
Canadians did. But the Louisianians disliked the Eng- 
lish name ; and the volunteers and militia from Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky aided them in resistance. Gen- 
eral Andrew Jackson, in command of the American 
forces, was vigilant and active. There were several 
days of sharp fighting on the banks of the Mississippi. 



314 



Stories of American History. 



On the 8th of January, i8i5,the decisive battle took 
place. General Pakenham, the leader of the English 



^- 



^ 




Battle of N'eio Orleans. 



forces, was killed in an attack upon Jackson's intrench- 
ment, and the English army retreated with immense 
loss. New Orleans was saved, and the 8th of January 
became a national holiday. The title of Hero of New 



The Lake War. 315 



Orleans was made the rally ing-cry for Jackson, and in 
1829 he took his seat as President of the United States. 
In these days of telegraphs it is hard to realize that 
this battle was fought fifteen days after a treaty of 
peace was signed at Ghent. Of the numbers engaged 
in the battle there are contradictory accounts. The 
invading force is stated at seven thousand. The 
Americans are said to have numbered twelve thou- 
sand. But many of them were without arms, and 
employed in digging trenches and throwing up forti- 
fications, and the actual number engaged was but a 
fraction of the force. They had the advantage of posi- 
tion, and the comparative loss of the two armies — two 
thousand on the side of the English, and about four 
hundred on the American — shows how great this ad- 
vantage was. War has never been renewed between 
England and America, though controversies have oc- 
curredo The two nations were taught mutual respect. 




CHAP. XXXV.— INDEPENDENCE OF LA 
PLATA AND VENEZUELA. 

1812 — 1820. 

^LJY 181 2 almost all the revolted colonies of Spain 
J-^ had been reduced ; but in another year they 
were up in arms again. On the Rio de la Plata, 
Montevideo held out for Spain, Buenos Ayres for in- 
dependence, till, near the end of 181 2, the former place 
was taken. Five or six thousand loyalists gave up 
their arms, and the countries on the river were free to 
carry on their quarrels and their lawless habits after 
their own fashion. As La Plata means silver, they 
took the name of the Argentine Republic, consisting 
of thirteen provinces ; and they succeeded in defeating 
all Spanish attempts to reconquer them, so as to get 
their independence acknowledged in 181 7. 

Bolivar had come back to Venezuela in 181 2. The 
insurrection in that quarter had never been quite ex- 
tinguished, but was maintained in New Granada by a 



Independence of La Plata and Veneztiela. 3 1 7 

youth of twenty-two, Jose Antonio Paez. When 
seventeen, he had been sent by his uncle, the parish 
priest of Azanac, to carry a large sum of money to 
another curate. He w^as mounted on a mule, and 
armed with an old sword and pistol. The lad was 
foolish enough to tell his business at the inn where he 
dined, and was in consequence pursued by two robbers, 
who demanded his money or his life. He shot one 
man, and a pistol bursting wounded the other in the 
face, then rushing on them with his sword, he put them 
to flight. But justice was so uncertain that he feared 
revenofe, and durst not return home. So he betook 
himself to the Llanos, or huge flat plains, where the 
country is one vast tract of grass, roamed over by large 
herds of wild horses. The only occupation of the in- 
habitants is herding them, catching and branding, and 
sometimes selling them. Paez hired himself out at one 
of these horse-farms, under a Negro overseer, who 
made him do the most dangerous tasks, undergo terri- 
ble hardships in the heat of the plains, and end the day 
in such servile work as bringing water and v/ashing his 
Negro master's feet. 

In 1 8 10 Paez became a soldier in the patriot army, 
but was made prisoner. Once he escaped being shot, 
by the mere chance of having borrowed a hat which 
caused him to be mistaken for an officer, and remanded. 



3i8 Stories of American History. 

A night or two after, a sudden alarm made the Spanish 
army break up their camp, and leave their prisoners, so 
that Paez escaped. The story rose that he had been 
deHvered by an army of the ghosts of his friends, who 
frightened away the Spaniards. 

After this, Paez, with a small body of horsemen, 
resolved to try to win the Llanos, thinking that if he 
could prevent the Spaniards from getting horses from 
thence, the cause would be gained. He was just the 
man to gain the affections of the Llaneros, having Hved 
their life, and grown perfect in training the wildest 
horse, hunting down the fiercest bull, and kilHng the 
alligator in his own river. After gaining a victory 
over General Don Rafael Lopez, he succeeded in driv- 
ing him out, and the wild Llaneros gladly flocked to 
fight under such a leader. He had the pleasure of 
having the old Negro foreman brought to him as a 
prisoner, and treated him kindly, only now and then 
teasing him by calling out in his voice, " Jose Antonio ! 
bring water for my feet ! " on which the old man would 
reply, *- Boy, boy, you have not forgotten your tricks ! " 

Mercy, however, was not common. The Spanish 
general, Monteverde, barbarously punished the rebels ; 
and Bolivar put forth a proclamation of " War to the 
Death ! " after which all prisoners were killed on both 
sides. Beginning with only five hundred men, Bolivar 



Independeitce of La Plata and Vejiezuela, 319 

drove Monteverde out of city after city in Venezuela, 
increasing his army at every step ; defeated Monte- 
verde at Lasto-guanes, and took Caracas, where, in 18 14, 
a convention of officers proclaimed Simon Bolivar dic- 
tator of their new republic. 

But the royalists rallied against him, and, as in the 
year 1814, Napoleon was overthrown, and Ferdinand 
VII returned to the throne of Spain, troops were sent 
to recover the colonies. General Morillo, with an im- 
mense army, and quantities of artillery, arrived to re- 
duce Venezuela to obedience. Bolivar was obliged to 
flee to Jamaica once more, and Morillo began to exer- 
cise cruel vengeance on Venezuela and New Granada. 

Numerous families fled to the Llanos, and were re- 
ceived by Paez. Their hardships were terrible. There 
was nothing to eat but the flesh of the wild cattle, 
nothing to wear but their hides, no shoes, no hats, no 
shelter, continual rains, and rivers overflowino:. The 
refugees said they courted danger, to escape their miser- 
able life. However, having caught and tamed enough 
wild horses to mount everybody, Paez chose one thou- 
sand of his best men, and two thousand white horses, 
because these were said to be the best swimmers ; and, 
each rider leading a spare horse, he crossed the river 
Apure in time of flood, fell on the city of Barenas when 
no enemy was dreamt of, drove out the Spaniards, and 



320 Stories of American History. 

brought back the horses, laden with all that his camp 
of wanderers required. Afterward he gained the city 
of Achaguas, and, in a battle on the river Apure, de- 
feated and killed General Lopez, and established him- 
self in that province. 

General Morillo, who had come out from Spain, was 
an able captain, but he fancied the insurgents a mere 
band of semi-savages. He defeated Bolivar at Ocu- 
mare in 1816, and another patriot shortly after ; and 
in January, 181 7, marched upon Paez. The battle of 
Las Maro^aritas had convinced Morillo as he wrote, 
that these men were not " a small gang of cowards." 
Fourteen times did Paez charge the infantry of Morillo 
with his wild horsemen, setting the dry grass of the 
Llanos on fire, so that if the Spaniards had not reached 
a spot previously burnt, they would have had no stand- 
ing-ground. At last they retreated, and Bolivar soon 
after returning, the insurgents began harassing the 
royahsts in all the country of the Orinoco. 

Defeats befell the patriots again, and nothing but 
the perseverance of Bolivar could have carried them 
through. The two generals joined forces on the Apure, 
where Morillo had a large flotilla of gunboats; and the 
wonderful cavalry of Paez did what probably never 
happened before in the history of the world — captured 
these boats. Fifty mounted lancers, without saddles, 



Independence of La Plata and Venezuela. 321 

dashed into the river, and swam up to them, assisted by 
their good horses, and captured them all. Morillo 
then retreated, and the next spring, 18 19, lost another 
battle at Angostura. 

A Congress was there held, and Venezuela and New 
Granada agreed to unite in a Republic to be called 
Colombia. They had one more great battle to fight 
with General Torre, who had succeeded in the com- 
mand, Morillo having returned to Spain. The place 
was Carabobo. Bolivar commanded the foot, Paez the 
horse, and they were assisted by fifteen hundred 
British volunteers. The Spaniards had nine thousand 
men, but were totally routed. The battle took place 
in June, 1820. Two months later Bolivar entered Ca- 
racas in triumph, and a constitution was formed for 
Colombia on the model of that of the United States, 
Bolivar becoming President, and Santander, who had 
fought under him, Vice-President. 

In Brazil, Joao VI had become actual King of 
Portugal, by his mother's death in 18 16. But he 
remained in Brazil until 1820, when a great disturbance 
broke out at Lisbon, and he was forced to return to 
Portugal, leaving his son Pedro in America as Viceroy. 

21 



CHAP. XXXVL— INSURRECTION IN 
MEXICO. 

1812 — 1820. 

¥HE insurrection in Mexico had not been ex- 
tinguished by Hidalgo's death. In fact, a land 
like this, full of mountain-passes, was very hard to 
conquer, and the inhabitants were ready, all over the 
country, to live a bandit life. General Rayon, who 
took the command on Hidalgo's death, called a Junta, 
which offered to acknowledge Ferdinand VII, if he 
would come out and reign in Mexico, as the Portu- 
guese sovereigns were doing in Brazil. But Ferdinand 
was too fast in the clutches of Napoleon, even if the 
proposal had been made in earnest. 

Another priest, Don Jose Maria Morelos, had dis- 
tinguished himself by taking Acapulco with a very 
small, ill-armed force. In the beginning of 181 2 he 
was at the gates of Mexico, and so highly was he 
esteemed that on the news of his approach Don Jose 



Insicrrection in Mexico. 323 

Maiia Fernandez Guadalupe de Victoria, a rich young 
lawyer, twenty-two years old, at once went out to 
join him. The Viceroy, Venegas, sent for the Spanish 
General Calleja to defend the capital, and received him 
as if he had been a great conqueror. Indeed, he 
did come through terrible difficulties across a country 
where there were no roads, and his men had to cut 
their way through such a forest, that once they took 
twenty-four hours in going three miles. He was a 
hard, vindictive man, and whenever an insurgent place 
fell into his hands, he burned everything in it except 
the churches and convents. He and Venegas could 
not agree, and he soon marched from the city of Mex- 
ico to take Cuautla. His cruelty made the Mexicans 
resolute to resist his assault. Every one fought with 
the utmost bravery, Morelos repulsing the assailants, 
and the Indians on the roofs of the houses keeping up 
such a shower of stones that they could not form again. 
Then Calleja established a regular siege, sending for 
artillery from Mexico. Still Morelos held out, but, as 
he had never expected a regular siege, he had laid in no 
stores of victuals, and there was a dreadful famine. 
Bats, lizards, rats, and mice were sold at large prices, 
and when an ox strayed near the walls there was a 
sharp fight to secure it. When Morelos attacked a 
battery and drove out the enemy, there v/as no keep- 



324 Stories of American History. 

ing- his soldiers from throwing themselves on the salt 
meat and cigars, and they lost so much time that they 
were driven out again. So Morelos did not venture 
to attack the camp, being sure that he could not keep 
his hungry men in order when once they saw food. 
But when he could hold the city no longer, he came 
out at midnight and marched his men in dead silence 
right through the besiegers' lines. At last they came 
to a hollow ravine, over which they had to lay hurdles 
carried by the Indians. A sentry heard them and fired 
his musket. The Spaniards woke, but Morelos gav^e 
the word for his men to disperse, each man shifting 
for himself, to meet again at Trucar. The Spaniards, 
in the confusion, began firing at each other, and killed 
many men before they found out the mistake ; but 
they avenged themselves by most horrid cruelties on 
the unhappy city of Cuautla. 

Morelos himself was hurt by a fall from his horse, 
but his army met again with very little loss, except of 
the gallant Leonardo Bravo, who was taken prisoner. 
His son, Don Nicolas, soon after gained a success, in 
which three hundred prisoners were taken, and Morelos 
made him a free gift of them, that he might offer them 
in exchange for his father's life. But the Viceroy 
would not listen to the offer, and caused Don Leonar- 
do to be immediately put to death. On this, young 



htsttrrectiori m Mexico. 325 

Bravo at once released all the three hundred, " to put 
them out of his power," he said, " lest in his grief he 
should be tempted to massacre them in revenge for 
his father." However, Morelos soon gathered troops 
in such numbers, that, after defeating three Spanish 
divisions, he attacked the large city of Oaxaca. Here 
Captain Victoria swam across the moat sword in 
hand, and cut the ropes of the drawbridge in the face 
of the enemy, who were so amazed that he did not re- 
ceive a single wound. The troops rushed in and took 
the place. Acapulco was soon after taken, and then 
Morelos collected a Congress, and an act of independ- 
ence was put forth on the 13th of November, 1813. 
This was the great wish of the heart of Morelos, but 
from this time a series of disasters set in upon him. 
He tried to take the city of Valladolid, but was there 
defeated by General Llano and Colonel Iturbide. One 
of his best chiefs, Matamoras, was taken, and though 
a large number of Spanish soldiers were offered in ex- 
change, the captive chief was shot by order of Calleja, 
who had been made Viceroy instead of Venegas. 
Thenceforth the insurgents shot all their prisoners. 

Iturbide gained further successes, and Morelos was 
obliged to escort the Congress from Oaxaca to Pue- 
bla for safety. On his way he was surprised by two 
bodies of the enemy. He commanded Don Nicolas 



326 Stories of American History, 

Bravo to escort the Congress with all the men except 
fifty, with whom he would do his best to stop the 
Spaniards. Most deserted him as soon as the firing 
became hot, but he still stood his ground so undaunt- 
edly that the royalists durst not come near him till 
only one man was left by his side. Still unhurt, he 
was disarmed, made prisoner, and conducted, in chains, 
to General Concha. By him the patriot leader was 
treated with respect and carried to Mexico, where the 
whole people flocked out to gaze at him. He 
showed great calmness and dignity, and said that, in 
establishing the Congress, he had done the w^ork he 
cared for in his life, and was willing to die. As a 
priest, he was given up to the Inquisition, and was by 
that tribunal degraded, having all clerical insignia taken 
from him one by one in the face of the whole people ; 
and this was the only thing that seemed to grieve 
him. Afterward he was given back to " the secular 
arm." He dined w^ith Concha, whom he embraced and 
thanked for his kindness. He was allowed to receive 
the sacraments, and then was led out to die. He 
knelt and prayed aloud : " Lord, if I have done well, 
Thou knowest it ; if ill, to Thy infinite mercy I com- 
mend my soul." Then he bound a handkerchief round 
his eyes, and gave the signal to fire. He seems to have 
been a really good man, driven into rebellion by the 



Insurrection in Mexico, 327 

cruelty and injustice of the Spaniards. He had given 
his Hfe to save the Congress, but his officers cared 
Httle for that body ; and there were quarrels between 
Congress and the military, until, as the royalists 
pushed them harder, the contest between the civil and 
military leaders resulted in rupture. General Teran, 
the soldier in command in the province of Puebla, 
dispersed Congress by force, and the leaders fought 
each for himself without any plan, so that one by one 
they were put down. 

Nicolas Bravo held out on the mountain of Coparo 
till he was at last forced to yield, and kept in prison. 
Guadalupe Victoria, in the province of Vera Cruz, 
lived a wild outlaw life, and seized all that did not 
travel with a strong escort between the port and the 
capital ; but at last his band was broken up, and he 
wandered alone with nothing but his sword in the 
mountain forests. There he lived for three years ; in 
the summer on fruits, in the winter in such hunger 
that he sometimes had to gnaw the bones of dead ani- 
mals which he found. 

In 181 7 Don Xavier Mina, a Spaniard who had 
been baffled in trying to get a freer government in 
Spain, made an attempt to revive the cause of freedom 
in Mexico. He landed with a body of enthusiasts of 
different nations, some of whom were EnHish. But 



328 



Stories of American History. 



he came just as the insurgents had been crushed, and 
the only leader in power was a priest named Torres, 
in the province of the Baxio, a ferocious, cruel man^ 
who robbed and burned villages and towns under the 
pretense of cutting off the enemy's supplies. After a 
year of fighting, during which Mina grew disgusted 
with his cause, he was taken and shot in his twenty- 
eighth year. Torres was shortly after killed, and in 
July, 1 8 19, the Viceroy wrote to Madrid that the insur- 
rection was over, and that he wanted no more soldiers 
from Spain. 




Scene hi Mexico. 



CHAP. XXXVIL— THE INDEPENDENCE 
OF MEXICO. 



1820— 1853. 

/TV HE Viceroy, Apodaca, had written to Spain that 
JL the rebellion was entirely put down, but he was 
mistaken. The battle had chiefly been fought by men 
of Creole birth, commanded by officers in the royal 
army ; and, in times of need, large promises of favor 
had been made them. As soldiers in the royal pay, 
they had fought against the patriots as bandits, and 
the cruelties on either side had made them bitter 
against one another ; but when the rebellion was put 
down, they began to think that, after all, it had been 
the cause of their own country against which they had 
been fighting, and that Spain was a hard mistress, who 
made her colonies her slaves. 

Spain was in an unsettled state, and Ferdinand VII 
had been forced, in 18 19, into accepting a constitution, 
or rule, by which the King was checked by the Cortes 



330 StoiHes of American History, 

or Parliament, and the Inquisition was abolished. Of 
the Spaniards in Mexico, some held with the old rule, 
some with the new, which of course they had been 
obliged to accept. The Viceroy, Apodaca, thought 
the Constitution would overthrow religion and every- 
thing good, and he resolved to proclaim a return to 
loyalty to the King, not to the King and Cortes. He 
trusted for help to Don Agustin de Iturbide, a Creole 
who had risen to high command for his valor against 
the insurgents, and who had been terribly cruel. There 
is a letter of his still existing, dated Good Friday, 1814, 
in which he said that, in honor of the day, he had com- 
manded three hundred excommunicated wretches to be 
shot. The Spanish authorities fulminated the decrees 
of the Inquisition against rebel prisoners as heretics. 

Apodaca, in 1820, gave Iturbide the command of a 
body of troops, who were intended to restore the power 
of the King. Instead of this, Iturbide proposed to 
them to maintain the independence of Mexico, the 
Catholic faith, and union among themselves. As they 
guaranteed these three points, they called themselves 
the Army of the Three Guarantees. The Spaniards in 
Mexico deposed Apodaca in their fright, and Iturbide 
continued to make progress. When Guadalupe Vic- 
toria had disappeared in the forests, at the dispersion 
and defeat of the insurgents, he told two Indians who 



The hidependence of Mexico. 331 

were the last to quit him, that, on a certain rugged 
mountain, perhaps they would find his bones. As 
soon as the Mexicans were again in arms for their 
country, these Indians went to the spot, and spent six 
weeks in searching the woods in vain, till, just as they 
were going to give up the quest, one of them saw 
prints of feet which must have worn shoes. He waited 
two days in case Victoria should return thither, and 
then, being obliged to go home and get food, he hung 
on a tree the last meal he had, four little maize-cakes. 
Two days later Victoria came to the spot and found 
the cakes, when he had been four days without food, 
and two years without tasting bread. He hid himself 
and waited, and in due time, he saw his Indian friend 
appear, and sprang out to meet him. The Indian, see- 
ing a spectre-like figure, covered with hair, and no 
clothing but an old cotton wrapper, and sword in hand, 
ran away in terror ; and only on hearing himself called 
by name, did he turn back and recognize his old mas- 
ter. He took him to his home, and, no sooner was it 
known that Guadalupe Victoria was found, than all the 
old patriots of the province rallied round him, and 
marched with him to join Iturbide, who was on his way 
to besiege the city of Mexico. Flowever, a new Vice- 
roy, Don Juan O'Donuju, had been sent out by the 
Liberal party in Spain, and, finding Iturbide too strong 



Stories of American History. 



for him, he recognized the independence of Mexico, in 
the name of King Ferdinand, and gave up the city of 
Mexico to the Army of the Three Guarantees, on the 
24th of August, 1 82 1, all the old Spanish party being 
allowed to take refuge in Cuba. 

A Junta was appointed, and Iturbide made Presi- 
dent-General ; but the old patriot party soon found 
that he was not to be trusted, and Victoria took to the 
woods again. A Congress was called together, and 
there were hot disputes. Some wanted to offer Mexi- 
co as an empire to the brother of the King of Spain, 
others to have a republic, and those who feared Itur- 
bide's ambition wanted to reduce the army, of which 
he was general-in-chief Thereupon, he took his meas- 
ures secretly, and on the i8th of May, 1822, the ser- 
geants, common soldiers, and beggars, assembled be- 
fore his house, and proclaimed him Emperor Agustin I 
of Mexico, with loud shouts of" Viva!'' and firing of 
guns. He filled the galleries of the hall of Congress 
with his soldiers, and thus forced the deputies to accept 
him, upon which Bravo and the other old patriots 
withdrew, as Victoria had done. 

The new Emperor made demands upon the Con- 
gress which were quite unsuitable to any notions of 
freedom ; and when these were not granted, he first 
arrested fourteen of the deputies ; afterward, when the 



The Independence of Mexico. '^^^Z 

rest would not bend to his will, he followed the exam- 
ple of Cromwell and Bonaparte, by sending his soldiers 
to turn the whole assembly out of its hall, and locking 
the door. 

His whole dependence was on his army ; but, be- 
fore he had reigned a year, he had quarreled with one 
of his chief officers, General Santa Anna, Governor of 
Vera Cruz, who with his garrison declared that Itur- 
bide had broken his oath, by dissolving the Congress, 
and pledged himself to get it assembled again. The 
officer who was sent against Santa Anna at once 
turned against Iturbide. Guadalupe Victoria once 
more appearing, the chief command was given to him ; 
and most of the army, and all the country besides, were 
unanimously against Agustin I. He called together 
all the members of the old Congress then in Mexico 
and offered to abdicate. But they said that to accept 
his abdication would be to allow that he ever had any 
rights, which they denied that he had ; but that he and 
his family should be allowed to depart, and should re- 
ceive an income of £5,000 a year. He chose General 
Bravo for his escort, and was sent off in a ship to 
Italy. However, he could not rest there, and returned 
to Mexico in 1824, but was almost immediately 
taken and shot, lest he should begin a fresh disturb- 
ance. 



00' 



stories of American History. 



Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete managed affairs while 
a fresh Congress was being elected to decide on the 
new form of government. It was to be a federal re- 
public, after the fashion of the United States. There 
were thirteen provinces, reaching from Guatemala to 
the river Colorado, Texas being the most northerly ; 
and five more thinly settled territories, Tlascala, New 
Mexico, Colima, and Old and New California, these 
last lying westward of the United States. There 
was a Congress, divided into a House of Deputies 
and a Senate ; a President and a Vice-President, 
each to hold office for four years, and, unlike the 
American President, never to be re-elected for the 
next term of office. The President and all officers of 
government were alv/ays to be Mexicans, but the 
clergy of all degrees might come from any country. 
The Mexican Congress declared that no form of relig- 
ion but the Roman Catholic should be tolerated, and 
did not interfere with the property of the Church, but 
abolished the Inquisition. The Mexicans were, how- 
ever, put into great difficulties by the Pope, who 
viewed them all as rebels, and refused to sanction their 
appointments to bishoprics. Thus the Mexican Church 
has been left to itself, and as the people were terribly 
ignorant, though devout, superstition has grown 
worse on one side, and misbelief or infidelity on the 



The Independence of Mexico. 335 

other. This division of the people introduced the mat- 
ter of reHgion into the feuds and dissensions of the 
repubHc. Though several of the priests before the 
revolution were distinguished as patriots and even as 
soldiers, the great body of the clergy remained conserv- 
ative, and with them were joined a large portion of 
the better class of people. On the other side were 
those of no religion, and those who, still adhering nom- 
inally to their superstition, hated the priesthood for 
its exactions, and who discovered how little morality 
and how little sincerity many of the priests possessed. 
In a word, the popular party, mixing religion and poli- 
tics, understanding neither, and debasing both, became 
a party of destructives. Brigandage prevailed ; some- 
times dignified with the name of patriotism, often rob- 
bery pure and simple. While the country districts 
were unsafe, the cities harbored gamblers, thieves, and 
idlers. Even the better and more prominent men were 
not free from the first of these vices. Public buildings, 
roads, churches, and monasteries were destroyed, and 
the proof of manliness was to strike at anything good 
which had been Spanish, and was still preserved by 
the conservative party. Nothing was repaired, the 
cities had no police, and there was really no govern- 
ment. The Spaniards, in their two centuries of rule 
had more than restored the damage they had done in 



^1,6 Stories of American History. 

their conquest; but independent 'Mexico relapsed into 
a far worse condition than she was in under Aztec do- 
minion. 

In 1853 Santa Anna, then an exile, was recalled by 
the Mexicans and made Dictator. The history of 
this man is truly remarkable. He was a distinguished 
soldier in the war of the Mexican Revolution, and was 
the first to proclaim the Mexican Republic in 1822. 
All his life he was appearing, disappearing, and reap- 
pearing in Mexican affairs ; now dictator, now in exile, 
now at the head of the army, and then in prison. In 
the time he had been upon the stage, some thirty 
changes of government had succeeded each other ; 
during which Mexico had lost the Central American 
provinces and Texas and California. His recall was 
followed of course by his expulsion. He was unques- 
tionably the most able man that Mexico had produced, 
though in his nature he shared in the cruel ferocity 
which seemed inseparable from the character of Mexi= 
can leaders. 



CHAP. XXXVIIL— THE EMPEROR MAXI 

MILIAN. 



1858— 1882. 

MEANTIME out of the chaos in Mexico rose, in 
1858, Benito Juarez, '' le petit Indien'' as the 
French styled him, from his parentage. He seized 
Vera Cruz, where he could command the customs, 
revenues, and confiscated church property to replenish 
his coffers. He even knocked down church-buildings, 
and sold their sites. It is said that a Belgian was the 
purchaser of one church for £19 los. All this made 
him the idol of the anti-clerical party. He was elected 
President of the Republic, and executed the decrees 
against the Church with great severity. The foreign 
commercial residents in Mexico, thinking they had 
found at last a powerful, strong-handed man who 
could settle the government, made him large loans for 
that purpose, to repay which the revenues of the cus- 
toms were pledged by Juarez. But payment was 
22 



338 Stories of A7iierican History, 

evaded or refused, and after Juarez decreed suspension 
for two years of the pledge of the customs and the pay- 
ment of foreign debts, his course brought the combined 
demand of England, France, and Spain for indemnity 
and reparation. A fleet, composed of vessels of the 
three nations, appeared in the Gulf of Mexico. Vera 
Cruz was occupied, and the threat made to advance 
upon the capital. An armistice was held, to the terms 
of which Louis Napoleon refused his assent ; and Eng- 
land and Spain, suspecting his ulterior designs, with- 
drew. The French troops still remained. In 1862, 
the French finally declared war against Juarez, and 
were joined by adherents of the clerical party. France 
had indeed entered into the civil war in Mexico under 
the old rule " divide and conquer." The other Euro- 
pean nations held aloof, the United States exercised 
diplomatic pressure against France ; but her troops 
pressed on, took the city of Puebla by siege, and on 
the Toth of June occupied the city of Mexico. Juarez 
fled from the capital, and transferred his seat of govern- 
ment to San Luis Potosi. 

A provisional government was established, of course 
in the anti-Juarez interest. An " Assembly of No- 
tables " was summoned, representing the clerical party, 
with some others, perhaps, who were ready to follow 
any road out of anarchy. The Notables decided on a 



The Emperor Maximilian. 339 

limited hereditary monarchy, with a Catholic prince 
for sovereign. The crown was offered to Maximil- 
ian, Archduke of Austria, and younger brother of the 
Emperor, and accepted by him. With his newly- 
married wife, Charlotte, daughter of Leopold, King of 
Belgium, he sailed for Mexico, and was warmly wel- 
comed, June, 1864, by the clerical party. He was a 
fine, high-spirited young prince of thirty-four, full of 
eagerness to do good. But Juarez was still in the 
field, and the larger part of the nation were determined 
to accept no foreign government. The Emperor and 
Empress were excellent people, who longed to bring 
the restless nation into good order. But they were 
not as clever as they were good, and were too German 
to suit those tropical people, the Mexicans, who hated 
their simple, earnest activity and honesty. The na- 
tional pride of the Mexicans chafed, besides, at having 
French soldiers everywhere. 

The young Emperor had fallen into the hands of 
bad advisers. His Mexican counselors tempted him 
into Mexican practices. He issued a proclamation in 
1865, declaring the republic extinct in law and in fact, 
by the close of the term of Juarez and the vacancy of 
the presidency. Juarez replied that he was President 
till another could be elected. In the same proclama- 
tion Maximilian threatened death to persons taken in 



340 Stories of Americaii History, 

armed resistance against his government. Under this 
edict many estimable and popular officers were put to 
death, and the army of Juarez gained strength in vol- 
unteers and recruits. Furthermore, Maximilian lost re- 
spect by consenting to the restoration of slavery, and 
other abuses, which in his heart he condemned. More 
trouble awaited him. The United States had, all the 
time, recognized the Republic of Mexico, and refused 
recognition of the prince, who, they said, had thrust 
himself where nobody wanted him. The United States 
having conquered its own difficulty, strong represen- 
tations were made to the French Government against 
the presence of French soldiers in Mexico. Denied at 
the outset support from England and Spain, finding 
moral support nowhere, and pressed by the great ex- 
pense of the army in Mexico, Napoleon withdrew his 
troops in 1866, and the Empress went to Europe to 
beof assistance. It was in vain. Maximilian was en- 
treated to abdicate when the French departed, but felt 
bound in honor to remain. The nation rose against 
him. He made a brave defense, but on the night of 
May 14, 1867, was betrayed into the hands of his 
enemies by one of his officers, who is said to have re- 
ceived 3,000 golden ounces for his treachery. With 
two of his generals the Emperor was tried by court- 
martial and shot. The European ministers protested 



The Emperor Maximilian, 341 

in vain against this breach of the laws of war. But it 
was no departure from Mexican precedent. The 
charges against him were based on his unfortunate de- 
cree, under which the officers of Juarez had been shot, 
and the two Mexicans who were executed with him 
were imphcated in that unhappy measure. " Poor 
Charlotte ! " he was heard to murmur, as he dropped 
the handkerchief as a signal to his executioners. Well 
might he say so ; for, shocked at his misfortunes, she 
became hopelessly insane. 

The Mexican comment on these transactions was 
the election of Juarez as President, in the autumn of 
the same year. Re-elected in 1871, he died in office 
in 1872. The character of " le petit Indien" is open 
to many charges, but his ability and patriotism are un- 
questioned. Mexico still remains a republic, though 
it can not forget its old propensity to rebeUion and civil 
war. Its prospects just now seem to brighten. There 
has been no rebeUion for six years, and the present 
President, Gonzales, was quietly chosen in 1880. The 
Panama Railway, since it immensely shortens England's 
communication with her Australian colonies, makes 
peace very important. Though not traversing Mexican 
territory, it has its influence over her through her 
neighbors. In Mexico proper there are more than 
five hundred miles of railway, the latest in construction 



;42 



Stories of American History. 



connecting the republic with tke United States. Se- 
curity for trade is promoted, and the condition of Mex- 
ico is now better than ever before. 

One truly hopeful sign of light appears. Some of 
the devout and better educated of the Mexican clergy, 
aided by the missionaries, money, and sympathy of 
members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
United States, are founding a new church organization, 
which promises to give vitality to the old stock ; reject- 
ing errors and superstitions, but retaining its histori- 
cal continuity. The name chosen is " The Church of 
Jesus." 




CHAP. XXXIX.— INDEPENDENCE OF 
CHILL PERU. AND BRAZIL. 



I817 18«2. 

¥HE Chilian revolt had been put down by Spain 
in 181 3; but by 1817 the patriots were up in 
arms again. The Argentine Republic, on the opposite 
side of the continent, sent them help, and they defeated 
the Spaniards at Chacabuco. 

Thereupon they proclaimed a republic, with General 
San Martin at its head ; but in the midst of their ar- 
rangements the royalists gave them a severe beating. 
However, success made the Spaniards careless, and 
the Chilians won another great victory on the plain of 
Maypu. But what was worth much more to them was 
the volunteered aid of Thomas Alexander, Lord Coch- 
rane, afterward Earl of Dundonald. He had fought 
bravely under the British flag ; but, on a false accusa- 
tion about money matters, had been dismissed. He 
came to his title and estates in 1831, and was restored 



344 Stories of American History, 

to his rank in the navy, and as Knight of the Bath. 
Meanwhile he sailed about the world, tendering his 
sword wherever love of adventure or of freedom led 
him. He came with his family to Valparaiso, entered 
the service of Chili, and with numerous English sailors 
and officers set himself as resolutely as Drake or Haw- 
kins of old to drive the Spanish flag from the Pacific, 
not only from the Chilian but from the Peruvian har- 
bors. Sailing for the great harbor of Callao with seven 
vessels, two fire-ships, and four hundred soldiers, he 
sent a flag to chaflenge the Viceroy of Peru to fight 
him, ship for ship. The challenge was declined, and he 
resolved instead to attack Valdivia ; because it was 
deemed so impossible of capture that the enemy would 
not be on their guard. He could take with him upon 
this enterprise but three ships, and his own was so 
badly strained that he could only keep it afloat by 
pumping continually; and to encourage his men he 
took his spell at the pumps with his own hands. 

Valdivia was very strong, and defended by nine 
forts ; but they were far apart, and he made a dash at 
them one by one. His boldness so dismayed the 
Spaniards that they surrendered the whole city to him 
on the 5th of February, 1820. He went on sailing up 
and down the coast, seizing Spanish ships ; and on one 
of these voyages v»^as dismayed to see his little boy of 



Independence of Chili, Peru, and Brazil. 345 

five years old perched on an officer's back, waving his 
cap and shouting " Viva la Patria / " having run away 
from home and got on board. 

One night a Spaniard broke into Cochrane's house, 
which was a little way out of Valparaiso, and threatened 
his wife with death, unless she would reveal the secret 
orders with which her husband had sailed. She refused, 
and the man had actually once stabbed her with a sti- 
letto when her servants came in and saved her. 

Cochrane made a descent on the rocky islet of 
San Lorenzo, near Callao, with a fort upon it, in w^hich 
he found thirty-seven Chilian prisoners, working in 
manacles, and chained at night by the leg to an iron 
bar. He made it a manufactory of rockets and muni- 
tions for fire-ships ; and sailed about capturing Span- 
ish treasure-ships. He sent parties to seize the trains 
of mules laden with treasure coming down from the 
mines in the Andes. On the 3d of November, 1820, 
he sailed with a fifty-gun frigate through the nar- 
row passage between San Lorenzo and the mainland, 
entering the harbor of Callao by a way in which it 
was thought no large ships could come. That same 
day tidings were brought that the city of Guayaquil 
had proclaimed its independence, and sent off its 
Spanish governor, without shedding a drop of blood. 
There was only one large ship of war in Callao Harbor, 



346 Stories of American History. 

but there were four lesser ones,, and fifteen gunboats, 
protected by the batteries on shore. On the night of 
the 5th, Cochrane, with two hundred and fifty men in 
boats, stole up to the huge Spanish ship, the Esme- 
ralda. Springing up the side of the ship, Cochrane 
shot the sentry, and shouted to his men : " Up, my 
lads ; she's ours ! " There was much hard fighting be- 
fore she was won, and Cochrane was slightly wounded. 
But he captured the ship, with three hundred and 
twenty men in her, and thus did the greatest exploit 
in the war. 

Peru had remained quiet under colonial rule, but the 
republics of Colombia on the north, and Chili on the 
south, felt it needful to root out the power of Spain. 
While Cochrane was attacking Callao, which is the 
seaport of Lima, General San Martin with a Chilian 
army besieged Lima, and on its yielding, the independ- 
ence of Peru was proclaimed in 1821. The royalists 
were strong, however ; they regained possession of the 
city, and there was a good deal more fighting. Gen- 
eral Bolivar led an army from Colombia in 1822, gained 
a great victory at Pichincha, and took Quito. He 
then marched upon Lima, which the royalists evacuated 
at his approach ; but their forces, under General Rodil, 
threw themselves into the forts of Callao. At last, in 
1824, the battle of Ayacucho finally broke the strength 



Independence of Chili, Pei^u, and Brazil. 347 

of the Spaniards, though Callao held out, with true 
Spanish constancy, through eighteen months of 
blockade, and only surrendered in 1826. General 
San Martin was declared Protector of Peru in 182 1, 
but in 1822 summoned a Congress, into whose hands 
he resigned all his authority, quitting the service of 
Peru in disgust. He refused all money grants, but ac- 
cepted the public recognition of his valor and integ- 
rity. He retired to Chili, and thence to Europe. The 
Peruvian Congress conferred upon him the honorary 
title of Generalissimo and Founder of the Liberty of 
Peru, and gave Cochrane public thanks for his services. 
Upper Peru, namely, the southern part, which con- 
tains the higher Andes and the mines of Potosi, 
refused to belong to Buenos Ayres, but requested Boli- 
var to form a constitution for it as a separate state, 
and called itself, after his name, Bolivia. He gave it 
a President for life, who was to have power to name 
his successor. Bolivar was accused of intending to join 
this new state with Peru and Colombia, and make him- 
self perpetual Dictator. However, he was so really 
honest that the Colombians soon felt him to be their 
only safe head, and he was elected President in 1828. 
He kept the chief power in Colombia till his resigna- 
tion in 1830. His death occurred in the same year. 
Peru, which had elected him perpetual Dictator, had 



348 Sto7nes of American History, 

meanwhile cast him off, and proclaimed a President. 
But he was a truly great man. He had spent almost 
all his fortune in the cause of South American liberty ; 
and, though he had much public money in his hands, 
he died poor. He had done great good in improv- 
ing law and justice, and bringing in education ; but he 
found it a weary and disappointing task, and was 
followed by constant suspicion and dislike. In truth, 
these men of Spanish and half-caste or mestizo birth 
were unfit for free institutions ; and the fifty years that 
have passed since their emancipation have been full 
of disturbances and revolutions. Shortly before his 
death, Bolivar issued a farewell address, vindicating his 
character ; and his countrymen have done him the 
tardy justice which death procures for great men. In 
1842 his remains were removed from their first humble 
place of sepulture, and interred at Caracas, where a tri- 
umphal arch was erected to his memory. 

The South American republics are Ecuador or 
Equator — containing the seaport of Guayaquil — 
Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, the Ar- 
gentine Republic, and Chili. Patagonia remains un- 
settled and in the possession of the natives. England 
France, and Holland, retain their possessions in Gui- 
ana. Brazil remained nominally united to Portugal 
till 1826. When John VI, or Joao, with the royal 



Independence of Chili, Peru, and Brazil. 349 

family of Portugal, fled to Brazil in 1807, Dom Pedro, 
the heir to the Portuguese throne, was taken with 
him. In 1821, John VI returned to Portugal, and left 
Dom Pedro as Prince Regent in Brazil. When in 
1822 the Brazilians made their demonstration for in- 
dependence, they took a middle course and elected 
the Regent Emperor of Brazil, with the title of Pedro 
I. The republicans in some districts refused submis- 
sion ; and Cochrane, who had left Chili, gave his 
services to Dom Pedro. The malcontents were sup- 
pressed, and the area of Brazil widened, and Cochrane 
was created by the Emperor Marquis of Maranham. 
In 1825 Dom Pedro I was recognized by the Portu- 
guese Cortes; and in 1826, his father having died, he 
claimed the crown of Portugal, but resigned in favor 
of his daughter, Maria de Gloria. His Brazilian sub- 
jects grew discontented, and demanded a constitution 
like that of England. Dom Pedro I could not make 
up his mind to grant this, and abdicated in 1831 in 
favor of his son Pedro, then about five years old, now 
reigning in Brazil as Dom Pedro II. Leaving his son 
to be educated by his ministry, Pedro I returned to 
Europe, and replaced his daughter on the throne of 
Portugal, which had been usurped by her uncle Mi- 
guel. The double abdicator, Dom Pedro I, died in 
1834. 



CHAP. XL. — THE EMANCIPATION OF 
NEGROES IN THE ENGLISH ISLES. 



1772— 183J5. 

LL this time a great question affecting America 
was being fought out in England. It was the 
question whether it was right, toward God or toward 
man, that one human being might be seized and made 
the property of another, Hke a sheep or an ox. 

Good men took it up, and tried to argue it out. 
Tliey said slavery was allowed by the Bible, and even 
in Christian times, and that Negroes were too dull to 
think for themselves, and that, though strong to work 
in hot climates, they were so lazy that they must be 
made to work, and that it was better for them to be 
slaves than savages. On the other hand, it was argued 
that, in the state of society under the Old Testament, 
if prisoners of war had not been enslaved they must 
have been slaughtered, and likewise that the law 
guarded slaves carefully from cruelty ; the Gospel had 



Negroes Emancipated in the English Isles. 351 

so worked on men's hearts that gradually freedom had 
come to all slaves in Christian lands, and that it had 
been really going back to heathen ways to enslave Ne- 
groes. Moreover, though a good man might train his 
slaves well, many only used them like tools, left them 
in gross vice and ignorance, and worked them harder, 
and used them far more barbarously, than the law of 
Moses had ever permitted. 

The first step to a better state of things was made 
by Mr. Granville Sharp in 1772, when he took up the 
cause of a Negro named Somerset, whom his master 
had brought from the West Indies, and claimed as his 
property to take back. The judges decided that no 
one is a slave in Britain, and that a slave thus becomes 
free from the moment he touches the soil of the British 
Isles. 

Then Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce 
set themselves to stop the slave-trade, namely, the act- 
ual stealing of men and women from the coast of 
Guinea, and selling them in America. It was a twenty 
years' struggle. Wilberforce began in 1787, and went 
on every year bringing his bill before the House of 
Commons; but it was not till 1807 that his persever- 
ance at last succeeded in getting a bill passed which 
made it unlawful for Englishmen or English ships to 
be men-stealers. 



352 Stories of Ainericaii History. 

But this was of little use while other nations went 
on with the horrid traffic, so the rest were asked to 
pass the same law. The United States did so at once ; 
and so did the republics of Chili, Venezuela, and Bue- 
nos Ayres ; and Sweden and Denmark, Holland and 
France, when the great peace of 1814 was made. 

But Spain and Portugal wanted to be paid for the 
loss, and even then Portugal only abolished the slave- 
trade north of the equator, and promised to put an end 
to it in eight years ; and Spain made the same promise, 
but did not keep it. Indeed, the laws were of little use 
when there was no one to put them in force, and high 
prices could be had for blacks all over the hotter parts 
of America. So by further laws, agreed upon by the 
nations, it was ruled that slave-trading ships should be 
dealt with as pirates, and a right of search was granted. 
British ships were kept cruising in the Atlantic to 
search any vessel suspected of being a slaver, and seize 
it if any slaves were found on board. It was seldom 
possible to return the poor Negroes to their homes, 
since they had generally been captured by some fierce 
tribe, and therefore the British settlement of Sierra 
Leone, in Africa, which had been already begun for 
liberated slaves, was made into an abode for them to 
be trained in civilization and Christianity. 

High prices still tempted the lawless men of all 



Negroes Emancipated in the English Isles, 353 



nations to run all the risks of carrying on the slave- 
trade ; and the miseries of the wretched captives were 
increased as the vessels were made as small, light, and 




Negro Slaves harvesting Sugar-Cane. 



swift as possible. The slaves were hidden between 
decks in a fearfully crowded state, jammed together 
standing, and with so little air, water, or food, that 
numbers died, and the horrors and sufferings were un- 
speakable 
23 



Nothing could cure this while slaves could 



354 Stories of American History, 

still be bought and sold, and Thomas Fovvell Buxton 
and Henry Brougham (both at that date untitled) 
were working to do away entirely with slavery in Eng- 
lish possessions. If coffee, sugar, and cotton could not 
be grown without slave-labor, it was better, many 
thought, to do without them altogether. There were 
difficulties in the way, for it was unjust to ruin the 
West India planters, and the Negroes needed to be 
trained for freedom. Reports that their liberty had 
been decreed came to Jamaica in 1831, and they rose 
upon their masters, committed sundry murders, and 
they burned plantations, so that it was feared that the 
Haitian horrors would be repeated. However, they 
were put down by force of arms, and in 1833 a grant of 
twenty million pounds was made to compensate the 
owners, and on the ist of January, 1834, eight hundred 
thousand slaves were set free. They were to serve as 
apprentices to their masters for six years, but this was 
found not to answer. The Negroes could not under- 
stand their semi-freedom, and by 1838 this apprentice- 
ship was given up, and there was not a slave in the 
British dominions. 

The loss was heavy. The Negroes just released 
would not work when they were not obliged. In the 
West Indian climate the very smallest labor suffices to 
produce plenty of food, and the Negroes did not care 



Neg7^oes Emancipated in the English Isles. 355 

for anything more. In the sugar and rum manufac- 
tures, and all else that had made the isles rich and pros- 
perous, there was a falling off to the extent of three 
fourths or more, and in some plantations production 
was entirely given up, and many families were ruined. 
Yet the evils of slavery are so great that even at this 
cost its abolition was well gained. There were cases, 
more frequent than otherwise, in which the master was 
good, and felt the responsibility of his charges ; but the 
misfortune was that there was no effectual legal mode 
to prevent power from bsing so used as to be cruel to 
the slave, and ruinous to the character of the master. 
Public opinion and, what is better than that, conscience, 
did not affect those who most needed control. 

The liberation of the West Indian slaves, and the 
injury to the plantations, enhanced the value of slaves 
where slavery still existed. Other causes operated to 
raise the value of slave products. In the southernmost 
of the United States, especially in the rice-swamps and 
on the sugar-plantations, where it was thought only 
Negroes could possibly labor, their work was harder; 
and the price of an able-bodied man or woman, and 
even of children, was raised to an extravagant sum. 
Slavery was chiefly profitable in a new soil, and in 
raising peculiar staples. In Virginia, where the soil 
was worked out by tobacco and farm crops, and in 



356 Stories of American History, 

other Middle State districts, people used to sell their 
superfluous slaves to the South, taking children from 
their parents, and entirely disregarding the tie of mar- 
riage. The child of a slave-mother was always the 
slave of her master, whoever the child's father might be. 
In a free land, an objectionable servant can be dis- 
charged, or a useless one dismissed. Under the slave- 
system the only way to reduce the expense, or get rid 
of a bad servant, was to sell. 

Yet the more the abolitionists tried to make the 
Northern States ashamed of the institution with which 
they were politically associated, the more the Southern 
States prided themselves upon it. There always had 
been a jealousy between the two divisions, and it grew 
worse and worse. The free and slave States were equal 
in number, for whenever a free State was admitted at 
the North, another slave State was made at the South. 
Of the eight Presidents elected previous to 1838, five 
were from the South, and the necessity of courting the 
Southern vote kept that region most powerful, though 
the North was strong in thoughtful and influential men. 
Attempts were made to give religious teaching and ed- 
ucation to the slaves, their own mistresses often acting 
as teachers. But this was dreaded by the masters, 
whose apprehensions never were realized, though many 
of the more intelligent Negroes became restless, and 



Negroes Emancipated in the English Isles. 357 

ran away to the Florida forests and to the swamps, and 
not a few made their escape to the North, and thence 
to Canada. Yet the history of slavery in the United 
States records very few instances of violence or at- 
tempts at rising. For whatever difficulty the Southern- 
ers had or feared, the Northern abolitionists were held 
to blame ; and the life of a man known to be on that 
side of the question was hardly safe in some districts 
of the South, and his presence was tolerated nowhere. 
Strangely enough, all this time people in the North 
loathed and shrank from Negroes, and would not let 
a colored person eat with them, or sit in the same seat 
at church, or in the same public carriage. The con- 
dition of Haiti was a bad precedent for the Negroes ; 
and the experiment in Jamaica was pressed also against 
their emancipation. 

Yet in Jamaica the result vindicates the laws of 
right and justice. The colored people are law-abiding 
and inoffensive. Extreme poverty is not known among 
them ; and, while they produce enough for their own 
needs, they raise even something for exportation. The 
old plantations once deserted are being taken up by 
Cubans and others. Labor is supplied by " coolies," 
or East Indians, who are brought under a system of 
indenture to this and other tropical regions, to take the 
place of the Negroes. Liable to abuse, and full of diffi- 



358 Stories of American History. 

culties, the subject has been so 'guarded by legislation 
that the strong objections made to it as a new system 
of slavery are being removed. There was a difficulty 
in Jamaica in 1865 — a Negro rising — which was sup- 
pressed in a summary manner. Since then the island 
has gone on improving. There is little doubt that it 
will recover its former commercial prosperity. And 
there is no doubt that freedom is better than slavery. 

It is to the credit of the Spanish-American repub- 
lics, with all their faults, that their constitutions pro- 
hibited slavery. The European nations followed the 
example of England as to their colonies. Only in 
" ever-faithful Cuba," still a dependency of Spain, does 
slavery exist in the Western world. However nomi- 
nally faithful to Spain Cuba may be, the ruling party, the 
native Spaniards in the island, disregarded the edicts of 
the Spanish Government against the slave-trade, and 
hold still with an iron grip the Negroes whose gradual 
emancipation the home authorities have decreed. The 
importation of slaves has ceased ; coolies and Chinese 
are introduced to take their place, and are treated with 
rigor. For three years, from 1S68, a rebellion was in 
active progress, during which over forty thousand pris- 
oners were put to death. The aim of the insurgents is 
the independence of the island and the abolition of 
slavery. The native Spaniards, against whom the in- 



Negroes Emancipated in the EnglisJi Isles. 359 

surrection is aimed, form scarcely more than one tenth 
of the population. Against them are opposed Creoles, 
free negroes, and slaves — the same discordant elements 
which existed in Haiti. The end of slavery must come 
— and let us hope without more horror and bloodshed. 




CHAR XLL— BOUNDARY QUESTIONS. 



1838— 1848. 

LL this time England's possessions to the north 
had been becoming more thickly peopled. A 
company for trading in furs, which had been formed in 
1670 by Prince Rupert, and called the Hudson's Bay 
Company, had stations and forts for dealing with the 
Indian hunters all over the cold regions of Labrador 
and Rupert's Land. The operations of the company 
eventually extended across the continent to the Pacific 
Ocean, and round their stations a certain amount of 
population began to spring up. 

Nova Scotia was chiefly peopled by descendants of 
the royalists who had left the States on their independ- 
ence. Newfoundland harbored among her fogs colo- 
nies of fisher-folk ; and into Upper Canada there had 
long been a continual stream of settlers, many of them 
officers of the navy and army, who, being no longer 



Boundary Questions. 361 

needed after the great war, had obtained, on easy terms, 
grants of land in the backwoods. 

Upper Canada was almost all British, Lower Can- 
ada chiefly French. There were jealousies between the 
two provinces ; and a feeling of discontent against the 
British Government was shown in a struggle of the 
Legislatures against the governors who were appoint- 
ed in England. This opposition was most marked in 
Lower Canada, and resulted in actual rebeUion in 1837. 
It was soon put down by the loyal militia, under Sir 
John Colborne, a tried old Peninsular general. Mean- 
while discontents were rife in the upper province, 
where the loyalists proved able to take care of them- 
selves. There were many " sympathizers," as they 
were called, in the United States, and the rebels who 
escaped from Canada derived aid from them. A 
" Provisional Government " was formed by the insur- 
gents in Upper Canada, which existed chiefly on paper, 
and made liberal offers for volunteers. This " govern- 
ment " took possession of Navy Island, on the British 
shore of the channel of Niagara, and made it a ren- 
dezvous for volunteers, and a depot of arms stolen 
from American arsenals. An old steamer, called the 
Caroline, plied between Navy Island and the United 
States side. In the night of December 29, 1837, while 
moored at her American landing, this vessel was seized 



362 Stories of American History. 

by a party of Canadian loyaHsts. One man of her 
crew was killed in the struggle, and the captors set 
fire to the vessel, and sent her drifting down over 
the cataract, but without a living soul on board. Navy 
Island was abandoned, and the arms were restored. 
The rebellion in Canada had already been subdued be- 
fore this affair. There were much soreness and some 
diplomatic correspondence on the subject, but this mat- 
ter, with others, was adjusted by the Treaty of Wash- 
ington in 1842. By that treaty the boundary between 
Maine and the British possessions was determined by 
mutual concessions being made ; and five years later 
the line between the United States and British terri- 
tory on the Pacific coast was settled on the forty-ninth 
parallel. 

An incident growing out of the Canadian rebellion 
was the arrest and trial of a man named McLeod. He 
boasted in the city of Buffalo of his share in the de- 
struction of the Caroline. He was arrested and put 
on trial in a court of the State of New York, charged 
with the murder of the one man who was killed. Each 
country watched the case with much anxiety, but the 
prisoner was acquitted in default of evidence. Serious 
questions of national importance would otherwise have 
been involved. 

In 1867 Upper and Lower Canada were united so 



Boundary Qitestioiis. 363 

as to have one Legislature ; and Nova Scotia and the 
other provinces, together with the immense tracts held 
by the Hudson's Bay Company, have been joined with 
them in one great government, called the Dominion 
of Canada. It is larger than Europe, but has fewer 
inhabitants than Scotland. The chief city is Ottawa, 
Almost all the population is British, except the Lower 
Canadians, and the Indians who still live at the west 
in large tribes. Government protects them, and they 
are not ill-treated ; but it is impossible to hinder trad- 
ers from selling them liquor, which ruins them. Some 
are settled round missionaries, who keep them in 
good order, and teach them to till the land ; but 
their constitution seems best fitted for a wandering 
life, and they dwindle and die out, even when taken 
care of. 

On the western outskirts of the United States fre- 
quent wars have taken place, of more or less conse- 
quence. It is the old, old story over and over again, 
and the red-men have had to fall back, step by step. 
Reservations of tracts are made for them, annuities are 
paid them, good men try to teach and Christianize 
them, and the laws forbid selling them " fire-water," as 
they call it. But greedy traders let them have arms, 
quarrels break out with the settlers, revenge begins, 
the Indians do some horrid deed of cruelty, and punish- 



364 Stories of American History. 

ment follows. But the worst features of Indian war- 
fare have been softened since the days when desperate 
scattered colonists fought for their lives. The Indians 
now feel the power they can not resist. Still they are 
being swept away, though on the reservations mission- 
aries labor for them, and large sums are raised by reli- 
gious bodies to support the work. Many youths, male 
and female, are brought to establishments in the old 
States for instruction, and so far with excellent results ; 
chieftains voluntarily offering their children to learn 
white men's ways. 

Meantime difficulties arose about Texas, a large 
Mexican province, very scantily inhabited till settlers 
from the United States began obtaining grants. The 
Constitution of Mexico was, like that of the United 
States, federal, and the settlers organized their State. In 
1836 General Santa Anna overthrew the Federal Con- 
stitution. The Texans revolted, Santa Anna invaded 
Texas, and the Texans, under General Sam Houston, 
conquered the invaders, and made Santa Anna prisoner. 
Texas became an independent republic, and so re- 
mained until 1845, ^^d ^v^s recognized by the United 
States and the European powers. In that year it was 
admitted, as a slaveholding State, into the United 
States, under President Polk, though not without res- 
olute opposition. Aside from the question of slavery, 



Boundary Questions. 365 

it was said the annexation would lead to war. And 
war followed. Though Mexico had recognized the in- 
dependence of Texas, there was a disputed boundary. 
The quarrel of Texas became that of the United States. 
General Zachary Taylor (afterward, and in consequence 
of his military successes, President of the United 
States) was ordered to occupy the disputed territory. 
He was attacked by the Mexicans, and in the battles 
of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma defeated and 
drove them out of the territory in dispute. The Con- 
gress of the United States declared that war existed 
by the act of Mexico. Volunteers were called for, 
Taylor was re-enforced and ordered to invade Mexico. 
He besieged and took Monterey in September, 1846, 
and then at Buena Vista defeated Santa Anna with 
about six thousand troops, against the Mexican force 
of about twenty thousand. 

In March, 1847, General Winfield Scott, a veteran 
of sixty, commander-in-chief of the United States 
army, landed with twelve thousand men at Vera Cruz. 
That city surrendered on the 26th, and General Scott 
took his line of march upon Mexico, which city he 
entered as conqueror on September 14th. On his way 
he had fought and won six battles with the Mexicans, 
who, though superior in numbers, were signally de- 
feated. One of the causes of his success was that his 



366 



Stories of American History, 



army had mainly subsisted by purchase, not by forage. 
The city of Mexico was not now on an island in a 
lake, but in a valley, and contained one hundred and 




Bombaj'dmeiit of Vera Cruz. 

forty thousand inhabitants. The provinces of New 
Mexico and Chihuahua were invaded, but the signal 
event of the war was the acquisition of California. 
Colonel John C. Fremont, who was there as a surveyor 
and explorer, rallied the settlers from the United States, 
and, with the aid of a naval force which had appeared 
on the coast, took possession of the country. The 



Boundary Questions. 367 

Mexicans, with their capital taken, were forced to 
make peace, giving up New Mexico and California, 
and admitting the Texan boundary about which the 
war began. For this surrender of territory they re- 
ceived a large compensation, as the institutions of the 
United States are against acquisition of territory by 
conquest. 

All this had been much disapproved of by many. 
The war was expensive, and Texas was said only to 
mean Taxes, spelled in another way, and annexation 
to be a mere fine name for robbery. There was some- 
thing, however, to be said for the provinces themselves, 
which might well wish to join a well-governed and 
prosperous Union like the United States, rather than 
belong to such a country of misrule and anarchy as 
Mexico. And California was found to be a rnuch 
greater prize than had been supposed. In February, 
1848, out of the sands of the Sacramento River were 
picked particles of gold, and the soil was found to be 
full of small lumps, which only needed to be sifted and 
washed out. On the news, thousands upon thousands 
came from all countries to make their fortunes. In 
two years the city of San Francisco alone had fifteen 
thousand inhabitants, and the gold region nearly a hun- 
dred thousand, against about forty thousand before the 
gold discovery. 



368 



Stories of American History, 



The slaveholding interest had gained a great point 
in the admission of Texas. California was now the 
great point of dispute. Here free labor and slave-labor 



;^^: 



-m^m^^^K' k 




Gold-Digging in California. 

w^ere brought face to face. The hardy miners — and 
mining meant labor — would not work side by side 
with slaves, and while the politicians were discussing 
the matter, the Californians met in convention, and in 
September, 1849, formed a constitution excluding slav- 
ery, and were admitted to the Union the following 
year. 



Boundary Questions, 



369 



In 1867 the United States purchased from Russia 
the Territory of Alaska, the northwestern corner of the 
North American continent, separated from Asia by 
Behring's Straits, and bounded on the north by the 
Polar Sea and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. 



24 





CHAP. XLIL— DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
REPUBLICS. 



^ 



RAZIL had quietly slipped, as we have seen, out 
-J-^ of colonial bondage, and gradually modified her 
institutions to suit her new condition. She escaped 
the fearful warfare with the parent country, by which 
the other colonies were desolated. Her internal dis- 
putes have been few, and not ferocious. From the 
interference of neighboring states, trying to promote 
insurrection, she has had some trouble ; and one long 
war with Paraguay grew out of that fruitful source of 
dissension— disputed territory. Her progress, though 
not rapid, has been satisfactory ; and, during late years, 
increasing. She has now an improving trade, about 
two thousand miles of railway open for traffic, and more 
under construction, and about four thousand miles 
of telegraph. The Roman Catholic is the established 
religion, but all others are tolerated. 

The Emperor, Dom Pedro H, left at five years of 



Development of the Republics, 



Zl"^ 




2^"] 2 Stories of American History. 

age under tutors and governors, was, at the age of six- 
teen, crowned Emperor, and at eighteen married. In 
1853 the importation of slaves from Africa was forbid- 
den. In 1 871 an act for the gradual manumission of 
slaves was passed, and under that act, by government 
aid and private generosity, the gift of freedom has been 
rapid rather than gradual. Dom Pedro II is judicious 
and practical, patient to observe and anxious to learn, 
welcoming immigrants, and encouraging the arts of 
peace. In 1876-77 he visited the United States and 
the continent of Europe, extending his tour to Egypt 
and Syria. 

Following the history of Chili and Peru down to 
the present time is no agreeable repetition of the old 
story of wars and violence. For centuries before the 
Spaniards landed in Peru, the natives had used a pecul- 
iar substance called " guano " as a fertilizer, and the use 
of it in South America has never ceased. It was not 
till 1 84 1 that it was introduced into England. Since 
that time the annual importation into England alone 
has risen from about three thousand to three hundred 
thousand tons. It has been a source of great wealth 
to Peru, and of great misery to the " coolies " inveigled 
to the Chincha Islands and other places to dig and 
load it. 

In 1863 there was a quarrel on a Peruvian estate 



Development of the Republics. 'i^']'^^ 

between some Spanish immigrants and native laborers. 
The next year a Spanish fleet came out, demanding in- 
demnity for injury to Spanish subjects, and seized the 
Chincha Islands. Ineffectual attempts were made to 
settle the matter by treaty. Peru was excited, Chili 
sided with Peru, and in 1866 another Spanish fleet 
came out. Valparaiso, in Chili, was shelled, and great 
mischief was done. The fleet then moved on to Callao, 
and the commander warned the inhabitants to retire 
to Lima, as he intended to burn their town. But the 
ships and batteries of Callao gave him a thorough beat- 
ing, and in five hours he and his ships were driven off. 
The 2d of May, on which this happened, has since 
been kept as a holiday by the Peruvians in Callao. 

The history of Peru has been one continued series 
of revolutions. In 1872, just as a National Exhibition 
had been arranged, there was a terrible one. Tomas 
Guttierez, the Minister of War in President Balta's 
Cabinet, set on foot an insurrection, and the President 
was shot in his bed by a file of soldiers. Guttierez pro- 
claimed himself Dictator, and for four days murder and 
terror reigned. His two brothers were with him in 
the plot. One of them, in command of a fort, was shot, 
and the garrison then sided with the infuriated people. 
Another brother was killed by them, and the Dictator 
of a day was himself hunted to his house and found 



374 Stories of America7i History. 

hiding in a bath. Shots and* blows were showered 
upon him till long after he was dead. Two of the 
dead bodies were hung for a time from the cathedral 
tower, and on the next day the remains of the three 
brothers were burned together. Such ferocity leaves 
only the hope that the British and other Europeans 
and the North Americans, who are drawn to these 
countries by their mineral and other wealth, may cre- 
ate a better spirit. Indeed, such a change has already 
begun. Foreigners are protected by their respective 
governments. Foreign capital and enterprise furnish 
employment, and the building of railroads and other 
improvements is teaching people to work. Unfortu- 
nately, for obvious reasons, the upper classes are alien- 
ated from the Church, and have lost the restraint of 
religion. The ladies, without the advantages of good 
education, though devout up to their knowledge, are 
too inert to exert themselves. They are beautiful and 
lively when young, but sink into dullness and apathy 
in their hot climate. 

Of the Republic of Chili there was, until recently, 
less to tell than of some others. The people have 
been fairly steady to their own government, though 
aggressive against their neighbors. The chief domestic 
events, other than those of a pleasant character, have 
been earthquakes and a fearful casualty at Santiago. 



Development of the Reptiblics. 375 

On the 8th of December, 1863, the eve of the Feast of 
the Immaculate Conception, when the Jesuits' church 
was perfectly full, chiefly of women, some of the deco- 
rations took fire. The flames spread, the frightened 
women choked up the doors, and no less than two 
thousand were killed, being either burned or trampled 
to death. 

The Chilians are terrible enemies. Probably their 
very loyalty to their own government makes them 
formidable to others. They have more energy than 
the residents nearer the equator. There were of course 
territorial disputes. And out of these grew a war with 
Bolivia. A secret treaty between Bolivia and Peru 
brought the latter into the quarrel. War w^as waged 
by sea and land. The Chilians invaded Bolivia in the 
beginning of 1880, pressed on to Peru, and, in January, 
1 88 1, occupied the Peruvian capital, Lima; and, indeed, 
the whole country. There they are still (1882), de- 
manding terms of peace so severe that Peru could not 
comply if she would, and remains helpless at the mercy 
of her conqueror. The Chilians were resisted step by 
step. Fierce battles on both sides were lost and won, 
towns sacked, and the country desolated. The Govern- 
ment of the United States has tried in vain to act as 
umpire. 



a^-!gi.*'*'liiimA^fcg'C^^^^a^^^^^g>'g^ J--^'^^^^»OBk^Sl^ 



CHAP. XLIIL— ARGENTINE CONFEDERA= 
TION. WAR WITH PARAGUAY, 



1835— 1870. 

IN the Argentine Confederation, Buenos Ayres is 
naturally the leading state. It comprises, in the 
first place, the city from which it takes its name, and a 
few other cities, centers of population. Beyond these 
is an immense plain, one hundred and eighty miles in 
breadth, which is for one half of the year covered with 
clover, and the other half with enormous thistles. 
These grow up in the summer, and in the autumn all 
die, and their hard, dry stems rattle one against an- 
other till they are broken down and carried away by 
hurricanes. Beyond is another great plain, full of salt 
lakes, with the plants that love salt ; and then the 
Andes begin to rise. Tribes of Indians dwell in the 
far interior, and the Guachos, or people of mixed blood, 
are scattered about at intervals in the Pampas, or 
plains of thistle and clov^er. Huge herds of wild cattle 



Argentine Confederation. 2)77 

and of horses roam on these plains, and the Hves of 
the Guachos are spent in catching them. Inclosures, 
called corrals, are arranged, into which the Guachos, 
who are desperate riders, chase the animals, riding 
along beside them at full speed. Then with a lasso, or 
long cord with a sliding noose, they contrive to en- 
tangle one at a time, and to throw it down without in- 
jury. If the creature be young and not immediately 
wanted, this is done for the purpose of branding with 
the owner's initials, and it is let go again. If a horse, 
it is kept, to be broken in, used, or exported. The cat- 
tle are killed and boiled down for the sake of the tal- 
low, which, with the hides, furnishes the chief article of 
export. Much of the meat is wasted, and fences are 
made of bullocks' bones. Nobody could be wilder and 
more ignorant than the Guacho. Though baptized, he 
has little of the Christian about him, and places super- 
stitious trust in some favorite image of a saint, or in a 
relic worn like a charm. 

Lawless and brave men like these are sure to be 
ready for any disturbance, and thus Buenos Ayres be- 
came embroiled with Brazil. There were attempts 
made to spread republican feeling in the contiguous 
Brazilian province of Rio Grande, and this led to a war, 
in which the Brazilian fleet blockaded Buenos Ayres 
for a year and a half. Then the English Government 



T^yS Stories of A7nertcan History. 

interfered, and peace was made in 1828 ; but this only 
left the Argentine provinces free to make war upon 
each other. 

At last a successful general, named Juan Manuel 
Ortiz de Rosas, became governor or dictator of his 
native province, Buenos Ayres, and in 1835 President 
of the Argentine Confederation. His was a reign of 
terror, which is still recollected with horror and dismay. 
He had a band of Guachos in his service, whom he 
sent forth to stab or shoot any who were obnoxious 
to him or to his favorites, or else to bring them be- 
fore him, when, after a pretense at trial by court-mar- 
tial, he had them shot. No one dared to disobey his 
orders, as, for instance, when he decreed that all houses 
should be colored red, and every one wear the same 
color, as a token of loyalty to the republic. The effect 
of the glare of the hot sunshine is said to have been 
to increase the violence and ferocity of natures already 
too cruel. 

Rosas made war with the two states of Paraguay 
and Uruguay, to compel them to join the Argentine 
Confederation. This involved war with Brazil, and 
England and France joined to repress him. While the 
fleet of Rosas was besieging Montevideo, it was cap- 
tured by the allies, and the navigation of the river Pa- 
rana thrown open to all nations. 



Argentine Co7z federation, 379 

After this the English and French fleets returned 
home in 1848-49. But Brazil continued the war, 
while Rosas resisted fiercely, and kept down all op- 
position at home by his savage band of assassins. 
But in 1 85 1 he was totally defeated by General Juste 
Jose Urquiza, commanding the troops of Brazil, 
Paraguay, and Uruguay, at the battle of Monte Ca- 
seros ; and, being hard pushed, he was obliged to flee 
to England, where he spent the rest of his life as a 
refugee. 

Urquiza became Dictator of the Argentine Con- 
federation. But in 1852, General Bartolome Mitre 
came forward as a leader in a movement of Buenos 
Ayres against Urquiza, which resulted in the separa- 
tion of Buenos Ayres from the Confederation, though 
Urquiza continued to wage war against the revolted 
province. General Mitre was chosen Governor of 
Buenos Ayres when, in i860, that state returned to 
the confederacy; and in 1862, when the Confederation 
was first called a republic, he was elected President. 
Mitre was an educated, sensible, and enlightened ruler. 
He did all in his power to improve the republic by 
opening schools, finding new employments, beginning 
railways, and encouraging English and Germans to 
settle in the country, and bring industry with them. 
Trade and commerce increased. Sheep were intro- 



380 Stories of American History. 

duced into the Pampas, and some efforts made to bring 
those vast plains under cultivation. 

The Republic of Paraguay had prospered under its 
Dictator, Dr. Jose Caspar Rodriguez Francia, who 
died in 1840, over eighty years of age. For nearly 
thirty years he had been absolute Dictator. His policy 
was complete isolation, and it was next to impossible 
for a foreigner to get into Paraguay, or out if once in. 
Travelers published books calling Francia's rule a 
" Reign of Terror," but under it Paraguay flourished. 
Dr. Francia was succeeded by his two nephews as con- 
suls, one of whom, in 1844, was made Dictator. Dying 
in 1862, he w^as succeeded by his son, Don Francisco 
Solano Lopez, who managed to become embroiled 
with three of his neighbors at once. 

In the little state of Uruguay party dissensions 
broke out into civil war. Unfortunately, the son of 
President Flores was identified with the faction op- 
posed to his father. He held a command in the army. 
Visiting his father in the palace, he had an altercation 
with him, and, following hard words, the son struck 
his father in the face, ran from the palace to the bar- 
racks, led out his regiment, and marched his command 
through the streets, making seditious shouts, A Monte- 
video paper, commenting on this transaction, called it, 
" his son striking him out of an excess of filial love." 



Argentine Confederation, 381 

The seditious movement was almost instantly sup- 
pressed. But President Flores was a few days later 
murdered in the streets by a band of masked assassins. 
Indeed, such was the frequency of murder in those 
lands, that there is a monument in Buenos Ayres to a 
man who, the epitaph says, was " assassinated by his 
friends." 

Brazil intervened in the quarrel in Uruguay. Lo- 
pez, Dictator of Paraguay, demanded that Dom Pedro 
should withdraw his troops from that republic. Brazil 
refused, and Lopez proceeded to settle disputed bound- 
aries by armed occupation, and to seize BraziHan prov- 
inces. In his aggressions on Brazil he crossed Ar- 
gentine territory. The Argentines protested, and Lo- 
pez made war upon them. The first intelligence of the 
war at Buenos Ayres was the news of the capture by 
Lopez of two Argentine vessels. The people of Bue- 
nos Ayres paraded the streets in great excitement, 
with cries of " Down with Paraguay !" President Mitre 
took advantage of the popular fury; the Argentine 
Republic joined with Brazil, and Uruguay came also 
into the alliance. Paraguay was invaded in 1866, and 
for four years made desperate resistance. The Gua- 
ranis, among the soldiers of Lopez, were distinguished 
for wild courage. Volunteers were accepted, and con- 
scripts drawn of all ages between twelve and seventy. 



382 Stories of American History. 

Even women, it is said, bore arms, disguised as men. 
It is computed that nine tenths of the Paraguayans lost 
their lives in the struggle. The war ended with the life 
of Solano Lopez, who was defeated at the battle of 
Aquidaban, in March, 1870. He was shot while at- 
tempting to swim the river, and the remains of his 
army surrendered. His last words were, "I die for my 
country." His love of country is undisputed ; but his 
idea of patriotism was unhappily controlled by his 
grasping personal ambition. His rule was despotic. 
Over his own people he was arbitrary and cruel ; he 
imprisoned members of foreign legations ; and only 
the timely arrival of war-vessels from the United States 
saved some members of the mission from that country. 
They were accused, together with other foreigners and 
certain leading Paraguayans, of conspiracy. The latter 
suffered torture and death. 

Brav^e little Paraguay, exhausted by external foes 
and internal suffering, gave way when she had no 
longer a leader. The rivers which her dictators had so 
jealously guarded were opened. A large portion of her 
area was surrendered, and for several years Brazilian 
troops occupied portions of her territory. She is now 
nominally independent, though really under Brazilian 
control. 

Disputed possessions have been the fruitful cause 



Argentine Co7ife deration, 383 

of wars in South America. The regions at the extreme 
south, inhabited by about thirty thousand Patagonians, 
still free and unsubdued, long an open question between 
Chili and the Argentine Republic, have been ceded to 
the latter. Practically the wild lands of Patagonia and 
the Tierra del Fuego Islands have been left to their 
natives, except for the brave and self-devoted attempt 
of Allen Gardiner, an English naval officer, who en- 
deavored to begin a mission for their instruction in the 
Christian faith. He was to have supplies sent to him, 
but these failed him, and he and his companions all 
perished from cold and hunger. Allen Gardiner's 
body was found in an open boat at Picton Island, in 
the Straits of Magellan, with a diary by his side, full 
to the very last of expressions of faith, hope, love, and 
even joy. 




CHAP. XLIV.— NORTH AND SOUTH. 

1848— 1859. 

/TV HE slavery question was becoming more and 
-L more an anxious matter in the United States. 
At one time the Northerners, though unvvilHng to be 
slave-owners themselves, had been willing to defend 
the institution ; or, at least, to argue that its disposi- 
tion was reserved to the States in which it existed, se- 
cure from interference by the terms of the Union. But 
a feehng in favor of abolition was spreading more and 
more ; and statesmen could not but see that the pre- 
ponderance of either — the party of freedom or the up- 
holders of slavery — could not satisfy the minority. 
The question became a political one. In the moral 
aspects of the subject, also, the nation was being in- 
structed. Lectures were deHvered, sermons preached, 
and books written, showing up the evils of slavery in 
the strongest light, and winning over numbers to an 



North and South, 



385 



active course, who had hitherto preserved an attitude 
of silent disapproval. Among the books written was 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
It had, and still has, a world-wide circulation, and has 
been translated into several languages. In the heat of 
controversy and the zeal of partisanship, it was impos- 
sible that special instances of cruelty and hardship 
should not have been represented as types of the gen- 




A Cotton Plantation. 



eral condition of things. Had the slaves, as a class, 
seen their own case in the light that the free men of 

25 



386 Stories of American History. 

the North regarded it in, there would have been, when 
the war opened, such an uprising of the bondmen as 
would have given the masters enough to do at home, 
without warring against the North. No such uprising 
took place. The slaves, as a body, remained apathetic. 
No outrage or violence is laid to their charge. If this 
was in part due to their ignorance, more is due to their 
docile and affectionate nature. Slaves, during the war, 
carried on the plantations, and ministered to the fami- 
lies of masters who were in the field fighting to retahi 
the institution. If there is in this something due 
to the honor of the slaves, so is there to the masters. 
Slavery in the United States has now been for twenty 
years a thing of the past ; and the dispassionate obser- 
ver has had time to admit that in the American Union 
it did not exist in its worst form, undisputed as were 
its evils. 

Slaves who could escape found friends in the North 
who assisted them to fly from the miseries of being re- 
turned. The usual fate of captured fugitives was to be 
sold into labor the most severe, in tracts from which 
escape was impossible, and into a condition where the 
amenities of mutual confidence could not exist. The 
slave-" catchers " had no pity on those who stole them- 
selves, hunted them down with blood-hounds, shot them 
in the chase, and would nearly as soon shoot an aboli- 



North a7td South, 387 

tionist as a mad dog. Of course, such extreme meas- 
ures as these could only be practiced in the swamps 
and deserts of the slave States ; in the free border States 
the runaways were often " kidnapped," their pursuers 
finding aid from mean and mercenary fellows of the 
baser sort. These abettors of the kidnappers were 
held in huge contempt at the North ; and it is only 
justice to say that at the South the professional slave- 
catchers were despised, even by those whom they 
served, though the preservation of the system com- 
pelled their employment. 

The Constitution of the United States provides that 
no person held to service or labor in one State, escap- 
ing into another, shall be discharged, but must be de- 
livered up on claim of the party to whom such service 
is due. The legal construction of this article compelled 
the courts at the North to decide that a slave-owner 
might pursue his property even into a free State. The 
abolitionists arranged what was called the underground 
railway, namely, the designation of families, at inter- 
vals, from the slave line to the Canadian frontier, who 
would shelter, hide, and pass on the runaways till they 
were safe on British ground. In 1820 the American 
Colonization Society founded a colony in Africa, called 
Liberia. The members of the society comprise South- 
ern as well as Northern men. To this colony such 



388 Stories of America7i History. 

slaves were transported as were manumitted by their 
masters, or released by purchase ; the emigration being 
voluntary. The emigration still continues, so far as 
the liberality of the friends of the colony will admit. 
These Liberians have so far prospered, the colonists 
being among the best of their race. The present 
population of Liberia is about twenty thousand of 
the colonial stock, and over seven hundred thousand 
aborigines. It is now an independent republic, and 
so acknowledged ; and, though the colony has exer- 
cised no perceptible effect in diminishing the blacks in 
America, it promises great good to the Negroes on 
their own ground. 

In the discussion of the question of slavery there 
were many good men at the South who honestly held 
that it would be cruel to turn so many dull and help- 
less creatures loose to provide for themselves, without 
having trained them. And there were wise men in 
the North who wished to devise some plan by which 
the slaves might gradually be enabled to deserve and 
earn their liberty, as each became able to attain it. 
But unfortunately there were such party questions and 
sectional jealousies mixed up with the subject that 
neither North nor South could think or work it out 
clearly, and every wrong done on either side inflamed 
people's minds. 



North and South, 389 

The far West, in the mean time, was being settled. 
The admission of California, without slavery, met with 
earnest opposition from the Southern interest. Other 
perplexing questions arose, and a solution of all was 
attempted by the great statesman often called " The 
Great Compromiser," Henry Clay. He introduced in 
the Senate a series of measures, popularly called " The 
Omnibus Bill," which, after exciting debate, was sub- 
stantially adopted. The most important provisions 
were : California was admitted as a free State ; Utah 
and New Mexico were erected into Territories, admit- 
ting slavery or not, as they chose ; the slave-markets 
were abolished in the District of Columbia, in which 
Washington is situated ; and a law was passed provid- 
ing under-ofhcers — and by commissioners appointed 
by the United States — for the recovery and return of 
fugitive slaves. This last matter had hitherto been 
left to the State authorities. As a compromise, this 
was better than most compromises. Utah, New Mex- 
ico, and much of California (under the arrangement 
by which the State of Missouri was admitted in 1821), 
were slave territory, in which, the South claimed, 
slavery already existed without special enactment. 
This claim was surrendered. The slave-marts in the 
city of Washington had made the capital of the nation 
a man-market. These were closed. The fus^itive-slave 



390 Stories of American History. 

law was all that the North was* called on to concede. 
But, while it created violent opposition on moral 
grounds, it made matters no worse for the fugitives. 
Northern men were, moreover, indignant that they 
were required under the provisions of this law to aid 
the officers when called on to assist in the capture of 
slaves. Practically this amounted to nothing, since no 
one heeded it except such as were ready to aid the 
slave-catchers before. 

In Utah, near the Great Salt Lake, a strange col- 
ony settled in 1847, having been driven out of IHinois. 
They had aimed to go beyond the territory of the Uni- 
ted States, but were included by the cession from Mex- 
ico as part of California. In 18 16 an invalid preacher, 
named Solomon Spalding, died in Pennsylvania. He 
left the manuscript of a romance, in which he pro- 
fessed to describe the fortunes, in America, of the lost 
tribes of Israel. The book was written in chapters and 
verses, like the Bible. One Joseph Smith adapted and 
corrupted this, and in 1 830 began, on this foundation, 
the Mormon delusion. Smith was killed while under 
arrest in Illinois. Brigham Young, who succeeded 
Smith as prophet, introduced the plurality of wives 
into the system. As this could not be permitted in 
any Christian country. Young carried the people he had 
deluded into what was then a desolate wilderness ; but 



North and South. 391 

he showed such ability in irrigating and cultivating it 
that the spot became exceedingly beautiful and fertile. 
For a time so many persons among the ignorant and 
easily deluded in Europe and America were ready to 
follow his emissaries, that he seemed to be going to 
set up a power like Mohammedanism. But after a 
few years the infection ceased, as it became known 
that there was a cruel tyranny in Utah against all who 
presumed to differ from the prophet. Now that the 
great Pacific Railway crosses the Territory, which is 
on the highway to California, there are over seven 
hundred miles of railways in Utah ; Salt Lake City is 
the terminus of three. The " Gentiles," as the Mor- 
mons call the rest of the world, are crowding the " Lat- 
ter-Day Saints," as they term themselves ; five or more 
Christian denominations have missions and churches in 
the very citadel of Mormonism ; the United States Gov- 
ernment are employing repressive measures ; immi- 
grant parties of the deluded are becoming few and far 
between, and many children of Mormons are receiving 
Christian instruction. Since Young died, in 1877, his 
followers seem to be diminishing. Polygamist dele- 
gates are excluded from Congress, but, though the de- 
lusion perish, and the seat of the high-priest of polyg- 
amy remain vacant, the beautiful Salt Lake City of 
Utah will remain as its memorial, when the name 



392 Stories of Ainerican History. 



ii!'!li';;illl|l!il!i'll!i|i™!lljlllillii;lii^i||lf 




North and South. 393 

" Deseret," as the Mormons call their country, is for- 
gotten. 

In 1853 the peace which had been made by Clay's 
" Omnibus Bill " was broken. The " Kansas-Nebras- 
ka " Bill was passed, by which two Territories north of 
the slave line were created, with permission to have 
slavery or not, as they chose. The North said this 
was a violation of the Missouri compact. The South 
said that the compact was broken already by free Cali- 
fornia. Kansas became the battle-ground. The ques- 
tion of slavery was to be decided by the majority of 
the settlers. So each side struggled hard to get the 
most in, and keep the others out. Kansas borders on 
Missouri, and the slave interest was made odious by a 
set of fierce men who earned the title of " Missouri ruf- 
fians." They invaded Kansas by violence to keep out 
or intimidate free settlers, using freely their revolvers 
and bowie-knives, and making the direct way to Kan- 
sas, through the State of Missouri, impassable. There 
were two hostile camps in Kansas, actually fighting, 
and " Bleeding Kansas " was a familiar cry. John 
Brown, of Ossawattamie, of Pilgrim or Puritan descent, 
was, with his four sons, among the foremost on the 
free side. Once, with sixteen men, he beat off several 
hundred Missouri marauders, who had burned villages 
newly settled by Northerners. Settlements being bro- 



394 Stories of American History. 

ken up, each side lived by plundering the other, and 
used to talk of a pro-slavery horse, or an anti-slavery 
cow. The two rival parties, free and slave, each held a 
convention and prepared a constitution. Neither went 
into operation, and Kansas did not enter the Union as 
a free State till in 1861, after the secessionists had 
withdrawn from Congress and war had begun. It is 
not surprising that Kansas contributed a larger propor- 
tion of her population to the Union army than any 
other State. Nebraska was admitted in 1867. 

Two events increased the excitement, and aided to 
precipitate the crisis. A Negro in Missouri, named 
Dred Scott, brought a suit in 1857 for his freedom, on 
the ground that, having resided in a free State with his 
master, he could not be remanded to slavery. This plea 
was in accordance with all practice and precedent ; the 
Constitution requiring that fugitives should be deliv- 
ered up, not that the free States should defend the 
claims of masters over slaves whom they themselves 
carried into places where slavery was illegal. If " Dred " 
had refused to return, he could not have been compelled. 
The Supreme Court of the United States dismissed 
the case for want of jurisdiction. Dred remained a 
slave. The Chief-Justice, Taney, added opinions which, 
as he had dismissed the case, sound lawyers pro- 
nounced extra judicial — namely, that, as inferior be- 



North and South. 395 

ings, Negroes have no rights " which a white man is 
bound to respect," and that the Missouri Compromise 
was unconstitutional. Whether the judge's opinion 
had official weight or not, it had immense influence on 
the adverse side of the slavery issue, and added to the 
growing excitement. 

Another cause of anger at the South and perplex- 
ity at the North was the misdirected zeal of the famous 
Kansas partisan, John Brown. While the troubles 
in that Territory were still rife, he undertook to raise 
the standard of insurrection in Virginia, and to lead the 
slaves against their masters. With a handful of men 
he seized the United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, 
whence he meant to supply arms for the slaves ; but 
there was no sign of an insurrection, and within twenty- 
four hours Brown and his party of twenty-two were 
virtually prisoners in the arsenal. Fifteen hundred 
militiamen and a detachment of United States troops 
soon arrived in the village, and the party fought des- 
perately against such fearful odds. Nearly every one 
was killed or wounded. Among the former was a son 
of Brown's, and among the latter John Brown him- 
self and another son. He was tried by the Virginia 
authorities, condemned, and executed December 29, 
1859 > ^^^ ^i^ ^^ his companions were hanged at a later 
day. With the knowledge, from the history of Haiti 



396 Stories of American History. 

and other instances, of what a servile insurrection may 
mean, there were few who could dispute the legality of 
these sentences. John Brown was a man of superior 
mind, of high courage, and no doubt intended to pre- 
vent violence and cruelty ; but he tried what was impos- 
sible. His captors and judges testified to his courage, 
fortitude, simple ingenuousness, integrity, and truth; 
and a witness of his execution, himself a slaveholder, 
said, '' When I meet death, I hope it will be with the 
composure and fortitude of John Brown." Still, as in 
the case of many other martyrs to their convictions, it 
must be said that he was a fanatic, who pursued his 
purpose regardless of the evil of his methods. On his 
way to the gallows he displayed a personal character- 
istic by kissing a Negro child held up to him by the 
slave- mother. 





CHAP. XLV.— SECESSION. 



i860— 1861. 



TN the seventy-two years from the adoption of the 
J- Constitution in 1788 to i860, there had been fif- 
teen Presidents in the United States — Washington, 
John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John 
Quincy Adams, Jackson, Van Biiren, Harrison — who, 
dying in his term, was succeeded by Vice-President 
Tyler — Polk, Taylor — whose death gave place to Fill- 
more—Pierce, and Buchanan. The election, in i860, 
of a successor to Buchanan, was made in a time when 
party spirit was running very high. From the time 
of the adoption of the Constitution, the question un- 
derlying all others was the question of " State rights " 
— that is to say, how far the sovereignty of the single 
State in the Union is affected by the Federal compact. 
South Carolina, in 1832, asserted the right of a single 
State to " nullify " the acts of Congress. From this 



39^ Stories of American History, 

extreme position she was force4 to recede ; but State 
rights became more and more a Southern idea, since 
the subject of slavery was affected by it. In the North, 
the Federal or Union sentiment was the stronger ; in 
the South, loyalty to the State in which a citizen re- 
sided. The Northern Democrats acted with the South. 
The party afterward known as Republicans came into 
power, as against the Democrats, on this issue. 

But the positions assumed by the Southerners cre- 
ated a division of opinion among the Democrats them- 
selves. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 forbade 
slavery beyond a certain line. The compromise bro- 
ken, the Northern Democrats maintained that slav- 
ery might be established, in new Territories, by the 
choice of the settlers. The Southern Democrats main- 
tained that slavery did exist, as a natural and political 
law, until abolished by legislation. The Northern 
Democrats apologized for slavery, and even defended 
it, to preserve State rights in the Union. The South- 
ern defended slavery for itself, and sought to break 
up the Union, to perpetuate it, and to maintain ultra 
views of State sovereignty. 

Thus, the Democrats were divided, while the Re- 
publicans held together, and elected as President Abra- 
ham Lincoln, of Illinois, an able, sensible, honest man, 
who had worked himself up in the world from very 



Secession, 399 



small beginnings. He had been a boatman, a rail-split- 
ter, or fence-maker, a shopkeeper, and a surveyor. 
During all the time of these occupations he was a stu- 
dent, and settled at last upon the profession of the law 
and was admitted to the bar. Like many country 
lawyers in the United States, he figured as a political 
orator ; and the republication of his speeches, after his 
nomination as President, greatly helped his election. 
He had held a seat in the Legislature of his own State, 
and in Congress. He was known to disapprove of 
slavery, but to see the difficulties of emancipation, and 
to think that, though the slave States could not, under 
the Constitution, be disturbed. Congress ought to for- 
bid the bringing of slavery into the Territories. In the 
hot feelings of the Southerners, they reckoned him as 
the enemy of their interests. They knew he would 
uphold the power of the central Government as op- 
posed to that of individual States ; and, as nothing but 
self-interest could make slavery seem right, that they 
would be the losers, unless they legislated for them- 
selves. The planters in South Carolina were sure that 
the other slaveholding States would back them in any 
opposition to the North, and decided on their course. 

Lincoln's election took place in November, i860, 
and in December the South Carolina Convention met 
at Charleston, and repealed its acceptance of the United 



400 Stories of American History, 

States Constitution, declaring the secession of the State 
from the Union amid public rejoicings. The same 
thing was done in the States of Mississippi, Florida, 
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, and the se- 
ceding States agreed to join in a Southern Confeder- 
acy, and to elect a President and Vice-President of 
their own. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was chosen 
President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, 
Vice-President ; and slavery was boldly declared by 
him to be the corner-stone of the new Confederation, 
since it was said to be a divine decree that the lower 
races of men should be in bondage to the higher. 

Though the election had taken place. President 
Buchanan would not go out of office till March, 1861, 
and he ought to have taken vigorous measures ; but 
the Secretary of War, Floyd, a Virginian, who had 
practically the command of the army, had liberally 
distributed the national military stores to the South- 
ern arsenals, leaving the Northern unprovided. These, 
with the ships at Southern navy -yards, were seized 
by the secessionists. Major Robert Anderson, of the 
United States Army, in command of Fort Sumter, in 
Charleston Harbor, asked for re-enforcements, and was 
refused. 

When President Lincoln entered upon his office in 
March, he declared that he had no wish to meddle with 



Secession, 



401 



slavery ; but he also said that secession was rebellion, 
and this, together with a refusal of the Secretary of 








Attack on Fort Sumter. 



State to recognize the official position of the Southern 
Confederacy, was the signal for war. On the nth of 



26 



402 Stories of American History. 

April, Major Anderson was summoned by General 
Beauregard, at the head of a large force of volunteers, 
to give up Fort Sumter. On his refusal, he was fired 
upon. He held out two days, but he had only eighty 
men, and his powder was almost gone, so he was forced 
to surrender, marching out with the honors of war, and 
spending his last powder in a salute to the Stripes and 
Stars. Not a man had been hurt on either side ; but 
the cannon that had been fired showed that each party 
was in earnest, and that the country must now prepare 
itself for the miseries of a civil war. The central States 
had to choose sides. The Virginians, who were proud 
of Washington's work, were loath to upset it. But they 
had slaves, and likewise cared for State rights ; so they 
joined the seceding States, as did Arkansas, North Caro- 
lina, and Tennessee, though in all these States there 
were some persons unwilling to break up the Union. 
Richmond, in Virginia, was made the seat of the South- 
ern, or Confederate, Government. Washington was, 
of course, coveted by both parties, but the Federals, or 
men of the North, were able to garrison it, and it was 
defended by earthworks and a large body of troops. 

Nobody was really prepared for war. The United 
States had always kept a small standing army, with 
officers carefully trained at the Military School at 
West Point. These officers had gained experience in 



Secession. 



403 



the Mexican War, and were now pretty equally divided 
between the North and South, according to their 
homes, and their political opinions. Under them were 
the volunteers and militia, called from their ordinary 
work, needing drill to be made into soldiers. There 
was plenty of stout courage and high spirit, and each 
side had the fullest confidence in its right, but neither 
had any training ; and, on the whole, the Southerners 
at the outset were the fiercer and the stronger men. 
But it was a great disadvantage to them that they had 
not much power of manufacturing, and still less of ship- 
building ; while the Northern navy, though only at 
first consisting of four available ships at home, was 
soon increased enough to blockade their seaports. 
Moreover, the laboring classes at the South were all 
slaves, with interests contrary to their masters, while 
the North could draw on its whole population for sol- 
diers. The only wonder was that the Southern slaves 
did not add to the horrors of the war by cruelties to 
the helpless families of their masters ; but they retained 
their submissive habits, and in many cases showed all 
the best points of the Negro nature, in kindliness or 
faithfulness. 




CHAP. XLVL— THE WAR OF SECESSION. 



1861— 1862. 

/TV HE boundary between the Confederate States and 
J- those which adhered to the Union was formed by 
the Northern State lines of Virginia, Tennessee, Ar- 
kansas, and Texas. The great object of the Federals 
was to cross this boundary, overrun the country, and 
reduce it to submission. In Western Virginia, where 
there were many Union men. General George B. 
McClellan succeeded in driving out the Confederates, 
and the district was afterward separated from the old 
State, and admitted, under the name of West Vir- 
ginia, as a free State into the Union. Next an at- 
tempt was made to advance upon Richmond, the 
capital both of the State of Virginia and of the new 
Confederation. This led to the first serious battle of 
the war, that of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. The forces 
engaged were estimated at thirty thousand on each 
side. It was in this fight that one of the Southern 



The War of Secession, 



405 



leaders, pointing to another officer's division, called 
out, "There's Jackson, standing like a stone wall"; and 




General Jackson at the Head of his Brigade. 



as the name Jackson was not uncommon, this dash- 
ing, daring officer was always after distinguished as 
" Stonewall Jackson." At three o'clock the South was 
in great danger ; but the Northerners were exhausted, 
and a fresh body of their enemies coming up, totally 
routed them. Nor was the Confederate army in a 
condition to follow up its success. The Union sol- 



4o6 Stories of American History. 

diers, who had no training, could not retreat in order, 
but fell back on Washington like a disorderly mob. 
"Don't stop me, sir — I'm quite demoralized!" cried a 
man in newspaper language to his officer. 

Three months after Bull Run, the Unionists met 
a sad blow at Ball's Bluff, on the Potomac. A de- 
tachment of the Union army, crossing the river at that 
point, was routed and driven back with a loss of eight 
hundred men. These events showed the North that 
the South was a terrible enemy, and there was a great 
muster of men from every quarter and occupation. 
The women arranged excellent plans for nursing and 
feeding the wounded, and sending supplies of warm 
clothing and extra rations of food to the camps. Even 
the little girls at school made " comfort-bags," holding 
a few things that each man might be glad to have, 
such as warm cuffs, a handkerchief, a few needles and 
some thread, a little book, or card, with Scripture text. 
A national Sanitary Commission was created, and, 
with the Young Men's Christian Commission, sys- 
tematized and directed the efforts of individuals. Vol- 
unteer nurses of both sexes went to the camps and 
visited the hospitals. Soldiers on their march to the 
scene of war were hospitably entertained in the cities, 
and returning men on furlough or sick-leave were 
cared for. Indeed, there never was a war marked by 



The War of Secessioii. 407 

so much effort to lessen its horrors, and by so little 
wanton cruelty ; for, however confident each side might 
be in its cause, there was hardly a man who had not 
friends in the opposite party. It was felt that the con- 
tention was between brethren. 

There were in 1862 fearful battles for the possession 
of Richmond. General McClellan, after his successes 
in West Virginia, had been appointed to the command 
of the Army of the Potomac. His advanced guard 
approached within six miles of the capital of the Con- 
federacy in May. It was attacked and driven back, 
but, being re-enforced, pushed the Confederates into 
Richmond. After two months' inactivity, McClellan 
undertook to change his base, and approach Richmond 
in another direction. Then at the end of June followed 
the engagements known as the " Seven Days' Battles 
of the Peninsula," in which, it is said, a hundred thou- 
sand men were engaged on each side, and the loss of 
each was fifteen thousand men. In the last of these 
battles, that of Malvern Hill, July ist, the Confederates 
were defeated. 

General Robert E. Lee, a Virginian by birth, a 
graduate of West Point, an officer in the United 
States service, a hero of the Mexican War, who held 
the confidence of General Scott, and was summoned 
to Washington at the commencement of the difficulty 



4o8 Stories of American History. 

for consultation, resigned at the critical moment, and 
went over to the rebellion. His devotion to his State 
mastered other considerations. He proved to be a 
dashing soldier yet a good strategist, with more enter- 
prise than McClellan, who was sometimes hesitating 
and always cautious, but to whom, for the drilling and 
discipline of the Army of the Potomac, the Union 
owed much. 

General McClellan was relieved of a portion of his 
command, and General John Pope appointed com- 
mander of what was termed the Army of Virginia, 
occupying the northern part of the State. General 
Lee threw the chief of his force against Pope, and on 
the 19th and 20th of August the Union army suffered 
a disastrous defeat at Manassas, or Bull Run, where 
the first great battle occurred. General Pope retired 
within the lines of defense near Washington, and was 
transferred, at his own request, to another command. 
He had been very successful in Western engagements, 
but the fortune of war was against him in Virginia. 
General Lee, early in September, crossed over into 
Maryland. General McClellan, who had been rein- 
stated in his former command, followed him. Closely 
pressed by the Union forces, and failing to find the 
sympathy in Maryland for which he hoped, and to 
which he appealed, General Lee made a stand at South 



The War of Secession, 



409 



Mountain. After a hard-fought engagement he was 
defeated, and fell back to the Potomac. Here took 










Sceite at the BattL of 
Antietam. 

place one of the 
_ great battles of 

^^^ the war, called 

the battle of Antietam, from the name of a creek which 
enters the Potomac. After two days of skirn^ishing, 



4IO Stories of American History. 

on the 1 7th of September the. bloody but indecisive 
battle was fought. The Union army kept possession 
of the field, but General Lee with his army crossed the 
Potomac into Virginia. One hundred and fifty thou- 
sand men on both sides were engaged, and the loss, 
including that at South Mountain, was more than four- 
teen thousand on the Union and twelve on the Con- 
federate side. The troops engaged in the Union army 
far outnumbered their enemies, and much dissatisfac- 
tion was expressed at Lee's escape. But the battle of 
Antietam was so far a success that President Lincoln 
took a step which he had delayed until a propitious 
time, when it would not be considered an indication of 
despair. On September 2 2d, as a war measure, by 
virtue of his position as Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army and Navy of the United States, he issued a 
warning proclamation that all slaves should be declared 
free in the States in rebellion on January i, 1863. 

On the 7th of November General McClellan was 
superseded by General Ambrose E. Burnside. A new 
advance on Richmond was attempted. General Burn- 
side, on December 13th, attacked Fredericksburg, but 
was repulsed with heavy loss by General Lee. It was 
a desperate battle, in which the Union army lost over 
twelve thousand men in killed, wounded, and missing. 
At a previous period in the war, Burnside, serving 



The War of Secession. 411 

under McClellan, had occupied Fredericksburg, and 
been compelled to retreat, and the two events are 
sometimes confounded. The Union army, after the 
serious battle of Fredericksburg, fell back to the vicin- 
ity of Washington. So closed, for 1862, active war- 
fare in the East. 

Four of the slaveholding States never joined the 
secession movement, though many of their citizens 
were in sympathy with it. Missouri, one of these 
States, was the scene of furious partisan warfare. Ken- 
tucky claimed to be neutral, but neither party would 
consent to this. A military post in the southwestern 
corner of the State was occupied but abandoned, and 
the wave of battle rolled on into Tennessee. Western 
successes somewhat relieved the disasters at the East, 
though there was an immense slaughter of men and 
waste of property in more battles and encounters than 
there is space here to recite. General Ulysses S. Grant, 
who had risen rapidly in command by previous brave 
and skillful conduct, captured Fort Donelson on the 
Cumberland River, with about fourteen thousand pris- 
oners. The fort surrendered February 1 6th, and as the 
only stipulation to which Grant would assent was "un- 
conditional surrender," the initials of his name sug- 
gested Unconditional Surrender as the popular name 
for the general who had gained the first brilHant and 



412 Stories of American History. 

decisive success of the Federal arms. The battle of 
Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, took place on the 6th 
and 7th of April. It has been aptly called the " harvest 
of death." On the first day the Confederate general, 
Albert Sidney Johnston, was mortally wounded, and 
the loss of each side in the two days is estimated at 
nearly twelve thousand men. Beauregard succeeded 
Johnston in command. Victory on the first day was 
with the Confederates, who were the attacking party ; 
but on the next, General Grant having reformed his 
lines and received heavy re-enforcements, Beauregard 
was forced to retreat. 

The navy of the United States, increased by build- 
ing and buying vessels, was by this time so povv^erful 
that the blockade of the Southern ports was established 
so far as so vast a line of sea-coast could be. Many 
points on the coast were taken and occupied by the 
Union forces. The harbor of Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, was blocked up by a great bar of sunken ships. 
England, France, Spain, and Portugal had recognized 
the seceding States as having the rights of belligerents ; 
and swift ships, which were called " blockade-runners," 
slipped past the Federal ships to bring into the South- 
ern ports goods which sold at a very large price to 
make up for the risk. In April Admiral D. G. Farra- 
gut, commander of the Gulf blockading squadron, 



The War of Secession, 413 

passed up the Mississippi, and, in spite of forts, bat- 
teries, gunboats, and fire-rafts, reached New Orleans on 
the 24th, and the city surrendered. On his way he 
sunk or disabled six rebel steamers. It was a daring 
exploit. General B. F. Butler was put in command 
of the city. It was a center of slaveholding interests ; 
the inhabitants were very violent, and insulted their 
victors. General Butler was forced to keep up the 
strictest and sharpest rule. He at once executed a 
man who cut down the United States flag, and his 
manner was so blunt and harsh that he was exceed- 
ingly hated and abused. But he said, probably with 
truth, that if he had not been so severe in silencing 
the people of New Orleans and protecting his soldiers 
from insult, his army would have been provoked into 
acts of revenge, and cruelty would have really begun. 

Farragut steamed up the Mississippi and bombarded 
Vicksburg, the last stronghold of the Confederates on 
that river. For the want of co-operation by land- 
forces the siege was for a time given up. 



CHAP. XLVIL— THE WAR OF SECESSION. 



1863— 1864. 

ON New-Year's day, 1863, President Lincoln is- 
sued his second proclamation, confirming the for- 
mer one, and declaring all slaves in rebel States fiee. 
Early in the war General Butler in Virginia had de- 
clined to return escaped slaves to their masters. If 
they were men, he could not give up fugitives or desert- 
ers on demand of the enemy. If they were property, 
they were *^ contraband of war." Contraband became 
through the war the designation of the Southern Ne- 
groes. Those who were employed in the Union 
camps were declared free, and this declaration finally 
extended to all fugitive slaves. After this, colored sol- 
diers began to be regularly enlisted. It was time. 
General Butler had found in New Orleans some free 
colored troops preparing for the Confederate service, 
and took them into the service of the Union. Up to 
the time of the first proclamation (September 22, 



The War of Secession. 415 

1862), the formation of colored regiments had not been 
much in favor. After that, the enHstment proceeded, 
and the colored troops fought well and were excellent 
in discipline. 

The spring of 1863 was opened with what must be 
classed among the most notable events of the war, in- 
troducing into real work the terrible modern inven- 
tions for making naval warfare more effective. At the 
beginning of the contest, the United States forces had 
been compelled to withdraw from the Norfolk Navy- 
Yard, destroying the ships and vessels as far as they 
could. A blockading squadron was kept by the 
United States in Hampton Roads. On the 8th of 
March there came steaming out of the James River a 
nondescript craft, which was said to look like a whale- 
boat, bottom up. It was an old war-steamship, called 
the Merrimac. Over her deck was a canopy fore and 
aft of timber and railroad-iron, and her bow was fur- 
nished with a steel ram. She made sad havoc of the 
blockading squadron, whose shot glanced from her ar- 
mor, while she was furnished with heavier guns than 
had ever before been used on shipboard. She sunk 
one vessel, burned another, and drove a third aground, 
and then retired up the James River to refit. That 
same evening there came into Hampton Roads an- 
other nondescript, which looked " like a cheese-box 



4i6 



Stories of American History. 



on a raft." It was the Monitor, an armor-clad turret- 
ship, invented by John Ericsson, an engineer and na- 




Monitor attacking the Merrbnac. 

val architect, a citizen of the United States, of Swed- 
ish birth. The Monitor was commanded by Captain 
John L. Worden, of the United States Navy. When 
the Merrimac came out for a second day's work, she 
found an unexpected antagonist. The two vessels 
fired at each other at short range for two hours with- 
out much effect, till a shell thrown through a port-hole 
of the Merrimac forced her to retire, with many of her 
crew killed or disabled. 

In 1863 the campaign opened with a most disastrous 



The War of Secession. 4 1 7 

defeat of the Union troops. General Joseph Hooker, 
who had succeeded Burnside, advanced into Virginia, 
taking a strong position at Chancellorsville. Here he 
was attacked by " Stonewall " Jackson on May 2d, and 
on the 3d a disastrous defeat compelled him to fall back. 
The Union loss in this advance and retreat was about 
seventeen thousand, including five thousand prisoners ; 
the Confederate about twelve thousand, of whom two 
thousand were prisoners. But the heaviest loss to 
the Southerners was that of" Stonewall" Jackson, who 
was shot on the night of the 2d by his own men in 
mistake. 

Both sides were getting depressed and weary. 
Volunteers in the North were used up by the terrible 
slaughter of the battles, and men had to be drafted, 
which occasioned great dissatisfaction, culminating in 
the city of New York in a fearful riot. General Lee 
thought it was a good time for another rush into the 
North. He crossed the Potomac and advanced into 
Pennsylvania, with all his available force, and on June 
27th had massed his army near Chambersburg. The 
Union army moved north and concentrated at Gettys- 
burg, a few miles distant. General George G. Meade, 
who had succeeded Hooker in the command of the 
Army of the Potomac, having learned by an intercept- 
ed letter that Lee could expect no re-enforcements, of- 
27 



4i8 



Stories of American History. 



fered him battle and chose the ground. A frightful 
battle it was, lasting the first three days of July, and 
covering the field with forty thousand dead and 




Repulsing a Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. 

wounded men. Lee retreated, and the battle of Gettys- 
burg w^as the turning point of the war. 



The War of Secession. 419 

At the very time that this battle was being fought, 
Vicksburg, the great Confederate stronghold on the 
Mississippi, was being surrendered to General Grant, 
Farragut co-operating with his fleet. After nearly six 
months' operations against the post, with fearful loss 
of life, ending in a close siege, Vicksburg capitulated 
on the 4th of July, and Grant received the parole of 
twenty thousand prisoners. Other posts were captured, 
and after two years of battle, blockade, and siege, the 
Mississippi River was open to the Gulf, and all Confed- 
erate supplies from the west of the river were cut off. 

Now President Lincoln began to say that peace did 
not seem so far off ; but war had to be pushed all the 
more to secure it. The Confederate cause was desper- 
ate, but the Southerners still were resolved to " fight 
it out till they had," as they said, " played their last 
man." In September they attacked and defeated a 
large Federal force which had occupied Chattanooga, 
near the border-line of Tennessee and Georgia. From 
this point, as a base, it was intended to invade Georgia. 
But at Chickamauga the advancing Federals were 
met, defeated, driven back to Chattanooga, and be- 
sieged there almost to the point of starvation. The 
siege-works included batteries on hills overlooking the 
town. In November Grant came to its relief, and on 
the 24th the battle of Chattanooga was fought, pro- 



420 Stories of American History. 

nounced one of the most remarkable in history. The 
Federal troops made their preliminary movements with 
such order and precision that the Confederates thought 
they were only holding a review, so complete had their 
discipline become. They charged the Confederates in 
their works, fighting up-hill, and the encounter of one 
of the attacking divisions, commanded by General 
Hooker, familiarly called " Fighting Joe," is spoken of as 
the " battle above the clouds." The besiegers were dis- 
lodged and routed, and the Confederate army was short- 
ly driven out of Tennessee. Congress voted thanks to 
the general and his army, and a gold medal to General 
Grant. The office of " lieutenant-general," first held by 
Washington, then vacant until the time of General 
Scott, vacant again upon his retirement, was revived 
by special act of Congress, and the appointment con- 
ferred upon General Grant. The lieutenant-general, 
the President of the United States being general-in- 
chief, has actual command of all the armies of the 
Government. The loss in these two battles was over 
twenty thousand men on each side. 

Grant issued his first general order as commander- 
in-chief in March, 1864, and announced that his head- 
quarters would be with the Army of the Potomac in 
the field. General W. T. Sherman was left in com- 
mand of the Department of the Mississippi. Grant, 



The War of Secession, 421 

on the morning of the 4th of May, crossed the Rapi- 
dan River with a force of one hundred thousand men. 
The country into which they marched was dotted 
with forests, having an almost impassable undergrowth. 
Here commenced, May 6th, a series of the most fierce 
and sanguinary battles of the war. Generals Grant 
and Meade, with Richmond as their object, were kept 
at bay, and fought successively six battles, the battle of 
the Wilderness being the first ; and there were several 
minor affairs and skirmishes. After each engagement 
Grant pushed farther south. Had he moved toward 
Washino^ton, such movements would have been called 
retreats. On the 12th of June he crossed the James 
River above Richmond, having lost in these battles 
sixty thousand men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners. 
The Confederate loss was about one third as many. 
The scene of the struggle was transferred to the south- 
ern side of the James River. The main body of the 
Army of the Potomac was, by the middle of July, be- 
fore Petersburg, twenty -three miles south of Richmond. 
Repeated attacks upon the Confederate works cost the 
Union army over ten thousand men. The slower pro- 
cess of a regular siege was adopted, and such a siege, 
by the courage and skill of its defenders, the Confed- 
erate force, with the army of Lee behind it, sustained 
for nearly ten months. 



422 Stories of American History, 

General B. F. Butler had in May, while the fierce 
battles of the Wilderness were going on, advanced up 
the James River. Deceiving the Confederates by a 
feint against Richmond, his troops were on the night 
of the 4th of May embarked in transports on York 
River, and in twenty-four hours were landed within 
fifteen miles of Richmond, at Bermuda Hundred, at 
the confluence of the James and Appomattox, with 
intrenchments in their front, and gunboats on both 
flanks on the rivers. Thus the James River was kept 
open for the supply of recruits for the sadly depleted 
Union army. General Butler's force of thirty-five thou- 
sand men included a brigade of colored troops. Though 
the first position at Bermuda Hundred was secured 
without any loss, there was fierce fighting afterward. 
The Negroes, invaluable as laborers, in intrenching and 
mining, exhibited in battle and in storming intrench- 
ments a fierce courage and contempt of danger unex- 
ceeded by any soldiers in the army. Colonel Robert 
B. Shaw, who commanded the First Massachusetts 
Colored Regiment, fell with a large part of his troops 
in an assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, and 
was buried by the Confederates in a common grave 
with his dark soldiers. In the West, Confederate com- 
manders had given the warning, " No quarter will be 
shown to Negro troops whatever." Fort PiUow, on 



The War of Secession. 



423 



the Mississippi, was taken by a Confederate force in 
April, 1864, and three hundred of its garrison massa- 
cred, both colored and white ; the latter as traitors to 
their Southern birthplaces. It is just to say that this 
atrocious act was without its parallel during the war. 




CHAP. XLVIIL— DEFEAT OF THE SOUTH. 



1864— 1865. 

WHILE the Union operations against Peters- 
burg and Richmond were in progress, July, 
1864, Lee aimed to relieve Richmond by a demonstra- 
tion against Washington. An expedition under Gen- 
eral Jubal Early invaded Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
and put Washington and Baltimore in peril. Wash- 
ington v^as re-enforced, and Early, after several sharp 
encounters with Union troops, and firing Chambers- 
burg, fell back into Virginia. In the Shenandoah Val- 
ley General Philip H. Sheridan and General Early 
were brilliant commanders, well matched. Early was 
defeated in the battles of Winchester and Fisher s Hill. 
The Union army then was posted at Cedar Creek, a 
position so strong that General Sheridan, leaving an- 
other officer in command, went to the city of Wash- 
ington on official business. General Early, on the 
morning of October 19th, surprised, defeated, and 



Defeat of the South. 425 

compelled the Union troops to retreat. A part of 
their artillery was captured and turned upon them. 
General Sheridan, who had reached Winchester on his 
return, unsuspicious of any disaster, was alarmed by 
certain indications, and hurried forward to the rescue. 
This incident is known as " Sheridan's Ride." He 
met and rallied the fugitives, led them back, recovered 
the camps and the abandoned cannon, and routed in 
their turn the late victors. 

The vessels belonging to the United States mer- 
cantile marine had by this time nearly disappeared 
from the ocean. They had been sold to foreign mer- 
chants, or taken by Confederate privateers. Of these 
cruisers there were six afloat in 1864, which captured 
over two hundred American vessels, burning or de- 
stroying four fifths of their prizes. But in June, 1864, 
a check was given to these piratical exploits. The 
Alabama, a Confederate cruiser built in England, with 
the best modern appliances, met her fate, after having 
captured sixty-seven American vessels, forty-five of 
which she destroyed. The Alabama was lying in the 
French port of Cherbourg, when the U. S. steam frig- 
ate Kearsarge, Captain John A. Winslow, appeared 
off the harbor. The commander of the Confederate 
ship, Raphael Semmes, sent a challenge to the Kear- 
sarge, and on the 19th, Sunday, steamed out for the 



426 Stories of America7i History, 

" sea-duel," which was witnessed by thousands on the 
French shore. An English yacht followed. The bat- 
tle lasted a little over an hour, the two vessels steam- 
ing round and round delivering broadsides, till the 
Alabama was found to be in a sinking condition and 
shortly after went down. Sixty-five of her crew were 
picked up by the Kearsarge, Semmes, his officers, 
and some men were saved by the yacht and landed in 
England. In this memorable sea-fight, one of the most 
remarkable incidents of the great Secession War, not 
the least marvel was that on both sides only ten men 
were killed and twenty-three wounded. Of the latter, 
two were drowned. The loss of the Kearsarge was 
only one killed and two wounded. The Shenandoah, 
another Confederate cruiser, was meanwhile operating 
in the Indian Ocean. She captured some twenty ves- 
sels on her cruise, and then, treacherously flying the 
United States flag, made her appearance in the Arctic 
seas and " lighted up the ice-floes with incendiary 
fires," ^* capturing ten whale-ships and burning eight of 
them in a group. This was in June, 1865, after the 
war closed, and after the pirate knew it. But he did 
not regard the newspapers as " official." 

The blockade of the Southern ports was now so far 
effective that only two remained accessible to the run- 

* Lossing. 



Defeat of the South. 427 

ners, Mobile in Alabama and Wilmington in North 
Carolina. Mobile was taken in August by Admiral 
Farragut, with the co-operation of a land-force. Both 
places were defended by strong fortifications, and at 
each was a formidable ram, modeled after the famous 
Merrimac. Farragut's squadron passed the forts, but 
the vessel in advance, the ironclad Tectcmseh, struck a 
torpedo, and sunk, carrying down her commander and 
nearly all his officers and crew. Only seventeen es- 
caped. Farragut in his flag-ship took the lead, direct- 
ing the movements of his fleet from the maintop of his 
vessel, where he was fastened with a rope. The gun- 
boats and the ram were next encountered, and the day 
ended with the capture of one of the enemy's boats, and 
the withdrawal of the others to the inner harbor. The 
next morning the formidable ram came rushing down, 
but was pounded by the Union fleet till she struck. 
In this engagement the Federal fleet was far superior 
in the number of vessels. But the Confederates had 
the co-operation of the forts, which were not taken 
until several days after their fleet was destroyed ; and 
they had also the hidden terror of torpedoes, one only 
of which exploded. Mobile was closed to the block- 
ade-runners. So, soon after, was Wilmington, after a 
desperate resistance. Her "ram" was sunk by a tor- 
pedo-boat, managed by a young lieutenant, William B. 



4^8 Stories of American History. 




Admiral Farragut in the Maintop. 



Defeat of the South, 429 

Gushing. Meanwhile raiding parties had cut off the 
roads to Richmond, leaving the Confederate army there 
only the hope that the troops from the South would 
come to their relief. 

President Lincoln had, in November, 1864, been 
re-elected by a vast majority over McClellan, who was 
the opposing candidate. While the South now hoped, 
the North waited. But all doubt was soon removed. 
The Union troops at the Southwest kept the Confed- 
erates busy in a series of fierce battles. In December 
President Lincoln received a dispatch from Sherman, 
presenting as a Christmas present the city of Savannah. 
Close upon this tidings the Congress of the United 
States took up and passed the " thirteenth amend- 
ment," abolishing slavery, on the President's earnest 
recommendation, and thus, the States afterward assent- 
ing, the " war measure " became a constitutional pro- 
vision for peace in the future. 

On the 1 6th of November General Sherman, with 
sixty-five thousand men, had commenced from Atlanta, 
Georgia, his " march to the sea." The army moved in 
two columns, subsisting on the country. Previously 
to his departure Sherman fired and destroyed the 
business portion of the town, which had been a chief 
source of supply of war material to the Confederates. 
He renounced all idea of a " base," occupied no posts, 



430 Stories of Amertcari History. 

kept no line of communication, sent advance detach- 
ments to secure the roads and fords before him, and de- 
stroyed bridges and roads behind him, as he pressed 
forward. He cut the wires, and shut himself from 
telegraphic communication with friend and foe. In a 
month he reached Savannah, whence, as we have seen, 
he was " heard from." Here he was put in communi- 
cation with the United States blockading fleet. He 
summoned General Hardee to surrender, and was re- 
fused. While Sherman was making ready for an as- 
sault, Hardee escaped in the night of the 20th of De- 
cember, and marched with fifteen thousand men for 
Charleston. The Union army occupied Savannah un- 
opposed, and here, for the first time in his march of two 
hundred and fifty miles, Sherman left a garrison. On 
the march he lost only five hundred and seventy men. 
Sherman's army next took Columbia, the capital of 
South Carolina, February 15th. The beautiful town 
was burned, the disaster resulting from the attempt of 
the Confederates to burn bales of cotton which would 
else have been captured. Charleston, which had en- 
dured a siege and blockade for months, was abandoned 
by the Confederates, General Hardee leaving with his 
troops, after effecting as much destruction as possible, 
making, as he did from Savannah, his movement in the 
nio;ht. The next day the Federal forces moved in, and 



Defeat of the South. 431 

set to work extinguishing the flames which had been 
lighted by the retreating Confederates. During the 
conflagration five hundred persons were kiUed by the 
explosion of magazines. Sherman still pursued his way 
to the North, and after two battles and much skirmish- 
ing reached Goldsborough, North Carolina, on March 
23d, where he was joined by the Union troops under 
General Schofield. 

The campaign opened near Richmond in March, 
1865, with various movements at first directed to the 
cutting off" the connections of that city with its sources 
of supply, and then to the capture of the Confederate 
capital and army. On Saturday, April ist, the Con- 
federates were defeated at the battle of the Five Forks ; 
and on the evening of the same day a cannonade was 
opened on the whole Confederate line round Peters- 
burg. It was continued till four o'clock on Sunday 
morning, and then with furious fighting an assault was 
made, and Lee's army was driven within its interior 
lines. Re-enforcements arrived, and Lee ordered a 
sortie against the besiegers. It was the last charge, 
though made with desperate courage. The Confeder- 
ate party fell back, and Lee telegraphed to Jefferson 
Davis in Richmond that the capital of the Confederacy 
must be evacuated. 

Davis received the telegram in church. His face 



432 Stories of American History. 

and manner indicated sad tidings as he hastened out. 
The information was not communicated to the public ; 
but the religious services were closed, the congrega- 
tion dismissed, and rumors distracted the city. When 
by the removal of boxes from the public offices the 
whole truth was discovered, the rush of those who 
wished to get away was made in wild confusion. Huge 
sums were paid for horses and wagons. The gold in 
the banks was sent off. Jefferson Davis and all his 
government left the city, its sole representative re- 
maining behind being an officer in the War Depart- 
ment. It was a pity he had not gone too. With 
nightfall came terror and dismay. The city council 
ordered the destruction of all spirituous liquors. The 
gutters ran with whisky, and parties of the intoxicated 
soldiers, joined by mobs, sacked the shops and set fire 
to many buildings. The warehouses containing cotton 
and tobacco were fired by order of the representative 
of the government, and, the official torch once applied, 
incendiary fires increased. Ships were burned, not only 
government but private property ; and the explosions 
of magazines and war -vessels added horror to the 
night's alarms. As the last of the retreating soldiers 
crossed the James River, they destroyed the bridges 
behind them. It was said that over seven hundred 
buildings were destroyed. 



\ 



Defeat of the South, 433 

At eight o'clock on Monday morning the Federal 
troops marched in, a brigade of colored soldiers head- 
ino" the column. Their first work was the extinguish- 
ing the fire, which had destroyed one third of the 
city. The place was put under martial law, the flag 
of the Union floated over the Virginia State-House, 
order was established, and not a few of the citizens 
rejoiced at their deliverance. The blacks were jubilant, 
but, true to their character, were guilty of no violence. 
Over the North flew the tidings, and it was a day of 
such rejoicing as found expression not only in hilarious 
gatherings but in devout religious services. 

On the next Sunday, April 9th, Lee surrendered 
to Grant at Appomattox Court-House. The terms, 
highly honorable to the victors, were release of the 
vanquished on their simple word of honor, and the 
usual surrender of arms ; and rations were at once 
issued to the famished Confederate soldiers from the 
United States stores. Private cavalry -men, who 
owned their own horses, were even permitted to ride 
home upon them. The week had been a wearisome 
one. General Lee had made bold attempts to get 
away with the remnant of his army, but was foiled. 
His men had dropped step by step from sheer hunger; 
and many had thrown down their muskets, too faint 
to carry them. 
28 



434 Stories of Ajnerican History, 

And yet there remained another crushing disaster 
for the South. On the 14th of April, 1861, General 
Robert Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter to the 
Confederates. On the 14th of April, 1865, he hoisted 
over Sumter the same old tattered ensign, which he 
had saved for years, in the faith of its restoration. On 
the evening of the same day, Abraham Lincoln was 
murdered by an assassin while seated with his wife 
and friends in a theatre in Washington. It was the 
crowning defeat of the South. The feeling of com- 
promise, which had begun to show itself am.ong many 
persons at the North, disappeared. The North stood 
up in the fury of what at first appeared a righteous 
anger; and the South, humiliated, disclaimed the act 
of the miscreant, who had followed his crime by rant- 
ing on the stage the motto of Virginia, " Sic semper 
tyrannisr 




CHAP. XLIX.— CONCLUSION. 

6p J ISM AY and grief went through the land with 
-L' the tidings of the murder. Men looked at each 
other with questioning fear whether the distracted 
country which had borne so terrible a strain in open 
warfare could yet contend with a dark conspiracy. 
The assassin escaped from the scene of his crime, find- 
ing a horse ready saddled, and no one could say who 
or how many were leagued with him in guilt ; no one 
could tell how far the foes of the republic had spread 
the mine, the explosion of which was to hurl back into 
anarchy the peace which had been won by brave con- 
querors over a foe as brave. Indignation was reawak- 
ened in the North against such persons as were known 
as open advocates of the southern cause, or suspected 
as sympathizers. A multitude of excited men had 
gathered in the city of New York, ready at a word to 
move on the work of destruction. Suddenly there ap- 
peared upon a balcony above them a man whose mien 



43^ Stories of American History, 

betokened a leader of men. He waved the flag of his 
country, as bespeaking attention, and the crowd 
hushed to listen. They thought, perhaps, that here 
was the man for whom they waited. Among the first 
words he spake were, " The Lord God oimiipotent 
reigneth I " They asked, " Who is this ? and what 
does he mean ? " It was James A. Garfield, as a sol- 
dier, brave ; as a statesman, wise ; as an orator, elo- 
quent ; and, as a man not ashamed to confess and to 
worship " Him who sitteth between the cherubim, be 
the earth never so unquiet." He reasoned the turbu- 
lent multitude into forbearance, and inspired them 
with his own hope and courage. New York was 
saved from deeds of violence, which might by the ex- 
ample have set the whole land in a blaze. 

If the murder of Abraham Lincoln was the crown- 
ing defeat of the South, the proudest victory of the 
North was in the generous course which was taken 
by the nation with those who lately sought to destroy 
it. Probably, had Lincoln not been murdered, there 
would have been greater leniency still. The serpent 
of slavery might have been " scotched, not killed." A 
brief time restored the national confidence. The Vice- 
President, Andrew Johnson, assumed office as the Con- 
stitution provides, and the functions of government, 
not stopped for a day, went on. Within six hours 



Conchision. 437 



after the death of the President, his successor took the 
oath of office. Investigation narrowed down the con- 
spiracy to nine persons ; and dihgent search failed to 
impHcate any more. Of these, the murderer, John 
Wilkes Booth, was shot and mortally wounded while 
resisting his captors ; eight were tried by court-martial, 
of whom four were hanged and four sentenced to 
imprisonment. The charge against them included a 
murderous assault, made at the time when Lincoln 
was murdered, upon the Secretary of State, WiUiam 
H. Seward, who survived his wounds still to serve his 
country. 

After Johnson came General Grant, who served 
eight years, and, after Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, who 
served one term. After Hayes came the broken term 
of Garfield. Under these successive Presidents the 
work of " reconstruction " went on, and the States late 
in rebellion came back under prescribed conditions. 
It were tedious to tell the political difficulties which 
this work involved, nor has it been possible to note 
all the men who have figured in the stirring events of 
the Great Civil War. Many of those events, each of 
itself a history, have been passed over. 

The freedmen have been quiet, and though thou- 
sands of them are not yet competent to exercise the 
right of suffrage, they are eager to learn. Of the arti- 



43 8 Stories of American History, 

cles which it has been the fashion- to say could only be 
raised by slave-labor, the annual returns are, on the 
whole, as large as ever. In some there is as yet a 
falling off, but the later cotton-crops are among the 
greatest ever raised. No coolies have been needed to 
produce this result ; for the colored people number 
over six millions and a half of the fifty millions of 
people in the United States — about two millions more 
than in 1870. Of Asiatics, chiefly Chinese, of whose 
" invasion " so much has been said, there are only about 
one hundred and six thousand, and they are not increas- 
ing. Some excitement was produced a few years ago 
by the " exodus " of freedmen from their former slave 
homes. It is the privilege of freemen to go where 
they list, and this evidence of freedom no doubt had 
its effect. But a curious fact appears from the census- 
tables of 1880. The relative proportion of colored 
people to white has largely increased in nine of the 
former slave States, and especially in those from which 
the exodus took place. 

A leading American gazetteer, with pardonable 
complacency, remarks that a stranger visiting the 
United States would scarcely realize that so great an 
internecine war had raged so recently. If the hand of 
Time has in a brief period covered the traces of ruin 
and desolation, the memory of the bitterness of the 



Co7tchcsion, 



439 



past and its causes can also be charitably buried. 
There was terrible suffering in prisons and prison- 
camps ; and there have been acts of violence and in- 
timidation against the freedmen, now become by the 
gift of suffrage the political rulers of their former own- 
ers. On these we need not dwell. The truth that 
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are the her- 
itage of all men is asserted before all the world, on the 
continent which has tested so many vital questions. 
No one who believes in a controlling Providence can 
doubt the issue. 



llU^ii^ 




7'he Centeitnial Exhibition Building. 



The Americans claim that the union of their States 
is stronger than ever. It would seem that all nations 



440 Stories of American History. 

conceded that claim when their co-operation gave to 
the United States Centennial Exposition of 1876 a 
splendor never achieved before, and when the youngest 
nation in the world received the elder nation with the 
hospitality, if also with the confident poise and easy 
self-assurance, of an heir just come into his estate, de- 
spite all other claimants. 

Honor vv^as further rendered when General Grant, 
successful leader in the closing triumphs of the contest 
which the nation made under Abraham Lincoln, laid 
down his military and his civil authority, and traveled 
round the world, the private citizen of the Great Re- 
public. Such personal tribute no untitled man, with 
no power in his hands or benefits in his gift, ever 
received before. But the nation stood behind the 
man, and the honor given, w^hile his own just due, was 
paid also to the people he represented, and to the cause 
of the right which he, with his patriotic countrymen, 
had vindicated. 

Again upon the United States the eyes of the world 
were turned. A second time the chief magistrate was 
stricken down by the hand of an assassin. The 
wretched murderer in this case had no associates, and 
his act had no public significance. Scarce had the 
newly elected President, in 1881, entered upon his 
duties, when he fell. James A. Garfield, with his liv- 



Conclusion. 441 



ing voice for the right, had held a nation in check, 
when roused to fury by a foul deed like that by which 
he now was sacrificed. For many sad weeks, and 
w^eary with sorrow, the world waited for his dying 
breath. From all lands came the expression of deep 
sympathy. Shot down on July 2, 188 1, he died on the 
19th of September, meeting the "last enemy" like a 
hero and a Christian. The Queen of England laid her 
offering upon his bier, and, forgetting the Empress in 
the woman, spake comfort to his widow. 

Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President, succeeded as 
President of the United States. There is one more 
incident highly honorable to England and the United 
States, and a portent of the time when wars shall 
cease, which must not be forgotten. The two great 
nations, who had serious questions in controversy, 
chose in the Geneva Conference the arbitrament of 
peace ; and in mutual respect and friendliness healed 
their differences. And now, with no border or other 
disputes between them, the English-speaking people 
point to the prosperous Dominion of Canada, and the 
once more United States, as examples of the way in 
which they have fulfilled their charge among the Euro- 
pean races who have possessions in the New World. 
In some parts of the continent defeated leaders in rev- 
olution have been summarily executed. In Canada 



442 



Stories of American History. 



Papineau and many of his companions, in the rising 
of 1837, were restored to their civil rights, and even to 
office. In the United States late Confederates against 
the Union are now in the national Congress. Jeffer- 
son Davis has not even been brought to trial, and is left 
in such peace as he can find — to his own reflections, 



such as they may be. 




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of the most indifferent." — Home Journal. 



m 



I^OMESPUN STORIES. By Ascott R. Hope, author of 

"Stories of Young Adventurers," "Stories of Whitminster," "A 
Book of Boyhoods," etc. With Illustrations. i6mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

" The stories are capital and capitally told." — Springfield Republican. 

" Twelve healthy stories for boys of a quality superior to those with which they are 
familiar. They are very pleasing, and this effect is secured without the use of the mar- 
velous and strange, but by ingenious and skillful presentation of ordinary incidents. 
The author has an art of his own, which he explains in an introductory essay and 
afterward well exemplifies. They show versatility in the handling of subjects, as well as 
a pure purpose and pure means, and well illustrate how quiet enjoyment in reading may- 
be made attractive and satisfying, with understanding of requirements and skill in 
meeting them. School-life, the Canadian backwoods, sea-life, the railway-train, 
France, Scotland, and Ireland, all contribute the subjects which, wherever located, have 
agreeable details and character, although the author is in his best vein in out-door ac- 
tive action. One may place this volume in the hands of a boy and be sure of no harm- 
ful influence, but of good, wholesome entertainment. It is a model in this respect." — 
Boston Globe. 



;EAN WONDERS. A Companion for the Seaside. By 
W. E. Damon. ' With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cheap edition, 
75 cents. 

" A very thorough natural history study of ocean-life. The author is an enthusiast 
in his gentle pursuit, and these pages will be likely to infect his readers with his own 
interest in it." — Hartford Coiirani. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



HE WINNERS IN LIFE'S RACE ; Or, THE GREAT 
BACKBONED FAMILY. By Arabella B. Buckley. With nu- 
merous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, gilt, $1.50. 

" Although the present volume, as giving an account of the verteb7'ate animals, is a 
natural sequel to, and a completion of, my former book, ' Life and her Children,' which 
treated of invertebrates^ vet it is a more independent worlc, both in plan and execution, 
than I had at first contemplated. ... I have endeavored to describe graphically the 
early history of the backboned animals, so far as it is yet known to us, keping strictly 
to such broad facts as ought in these days to be familiar to every cliild and ordinarily 
well-educated person, if they are to have any true conception of Natural History. At 
the same time I have dwelt as fully as space would allow upon the lives of such modern 
animals as best illustrate the present divisions of the vertebrates upon the earth ; my 
object being rather to follow the tide of life, and sketch in broad outline how structure 
and habit have gone hand in hand in filling every available space with living beings 
than to multiply descriptions of the various species. "—i^;w« the Pre/ace. 

" An account of vertebrate animals, written with such natural spirit and vivacity, 
that it might convert even a literary person to natural science." — Saturday Review. 

" We can conceive no better gift-book than this volume. Miss Buckley has spared 
no pains to incorporate in her book the latest results of scientific research. The illus- 
trations in the book deserve the highest praise ; they are numerous, accurate, and 
striking. " — London Spectator. 

" It is full of instructive illustrations." — Nevj York World. 



IFE AND HER CHILDREN. Glimpses of Animal Life 
from the Amoeba to the Insects. By Arabella B. Buckley. With 
upward of One Hundred Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" The main object is to acquaint young people with the structure and habits of the 
lower forms of hfe ; and to do this in a more systematic way than is usual in ordinary 
works on natural history, and more simply than in text-books on zoology. For this 
reason I have adopted the title, 'Life and her Children,' to express the family bond 
uniting all living things, as we use the term ' Nature and her Works ' to embrace all 
organic and inorganic phenomena ; and I have been more careful to sketch in bold 
outline the leading features of each division than to dwell on the minor differences by 
which it is separated into groups.'' — From the Preface. 

" This volume, conceived in a very happy style, imparting information in a pleasant 
manner, embraces a wide field of research, and the author deserves great credit for hav- 
ing made what is generally considered as a complex subject plain and easy to under- 
stand. The great merit of a book of this character is that, while it shapes the minds of 
young people toward an appreciation of the wonderful forms of nature, it gives to the 
adult, even to him who has studied such things, quite a ccm.prehensive view of all the 
lower forms of life. Of innumerable books of this character, we must give prefer- 
ence to ' Life and her Children.' " — New York Times. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



IHE FAIRY LAND OF SCIENCE. By Arabella B. 

Buckley. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" So interesting, that, having once opened it, we do not know how to leave off read- 
ing." — Saturday Review. 

"Her methods of presenting certain facts and phenomena difficult to grasp are 
most original and striking, and admirably calculated to enable the reader to realize the 
truth. AS to the interest of her story, we have tested it in a youthful subject, and she 
mentioned it in the same breath with ' Grimm's Fairy Tales.' . . . The book abounds 
with beautifully engraved and thoroughly appropriate illustrations, and altogether is 
one of the most successful attempts we know of to combine the dulce with the titile. 
We are sure any of the elder children would welcome it as a present ; but it deserves 
to take a permanent place in the literature of youth." — London Times. 

*' A child's reading-book, admirably adapted to the purpose intended. The young 
reader is referred to nature itself rather than to books, and is taught to observe and 
investigate, and not to rest satisfied with a collection of dull definitions learned by rote 
and worthless to the possessor. The present work will be found a valuable and inter- 
esting addition to the somewhat overcrowded child's library." — Boston Gazette. 



HORT HISTORY OF NATURAL SCIENCE AND 
THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY, FROM THE TIME OF 
^ THE GREEKS TO THE PRESENT DAY. For Schools and 
Young Persons. By Arabella B. Buckley. With Illustrations. 
l2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

" The volume is attractive as a book of anecdotes of men of science and their dis- 
coveries. Its remarkable features are the sound judgment with which the true land- 
marks of scientific history are selected, the conciseness of the information conveyed, 
and the interest with which the whole subject is nevertheless invested. Its style is 
strictly adapted to its avowed purpose of furnishing a text-bock for the use of schools 
and young persons." — Londoi Daily Ncivs. 

" A most admirable little volume. It is a classified resinne of the chief discoveries 
in physical science. To the young student it is a book to open up new worlds with 
every chapter. — London Graphic. 

" Miss Buckley supplies in the present volume a gap in our educational literature. 
Guides to literature abound ; guides to science, similar in purpose and character to 
Miss Buckley's History, are unknown. The writer's plan, therefore, is orirrinal, and 
her execution of the plan is altogether admirable. She has had a long training in 
science, and there are signs on every pae:e of this volume of the careful and conscien- 
tious manner in which she has performed her task." — Pall Mall Gazette. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



NIMAL INTELLIGENCE. By George J. Romanes, 
F. R. S., Zoological Secretary of the Linnaean Society. (*' International 
Scientific Series.") i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" A collection of facts which, though it may merely amuse the unscientific reader, 
will be a real boon to the student of comparative psychology, for this is the first at- 
tempt to present systematically the well-assured results of observation on the mental 
life of animals." — Saturday Review. 

"The high standing of the author as an original investigator is a sufficient guar- 
antee that his task has been conscientiously carried out. His subject is one of absorb- 
ing interest. He has collected and classified an enormous amount of information con- 
cerning the mental attributes of the animal world. The result is astonishing. We 
find marvelous intelligence exhibited not only by animals which are known to be clever, 
but by others seemingly without a ghmmer of light, like the snail, for instance. Some 
animals display imagination, others affection, and so on. The psychological portion 
of the discussion is deeply interesting." — Nezv York Herald. 

"Few subjects have a greater fascination for the general reader than that with 
which this book is occupied. — Good Literature, New York. 



ACTS AND PHASES OF ANIMAL LIFE, Interspersed 
with Amusing and Original Anecdotes. By Vernon S. Morwood, 
Lecturer to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
With Seventy-five Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, gilt side and back, 
$1.50. 

"'Facts and Phases of Animal Life' is a rare book in the natural history of the 
more common animals, and of a character very desirable for circulation to promote 
knowledge and love of animals. It gives wonderful facts about animals ; tells of the 
structure and habits of those at the bottom of the sea, in ditches and horse-ponds ; of 
bees, spinners, and weavers, black lodgers and miniature scavengers ; insects in livery 
and tiny boat-builders ; birds of freedom, feathered laborers, bird homes and family 
ties, bird singers, fowls ; miners of the soil, active workers with long tails and prickly 
coats, etc., etc. It is well written and is very complete in its facts, quite sufficiently so 
for an introduction to the study of natural history, or for the general reader." 



OYS AND GIRLS IN BIOLOGY; Or, THE SIMPLE 

STUDIES OF THE LOWER FORMS OF LIFE. Based upon the 

Lectures of Professor T. H. Huxley, and published by his permission. 

By Sarah Hackett Stevenson. With C'ne Hundred and Fifty-one 

Illustrations by Miss M. A. J. Macomish. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" Originally written in the form of letters from England to my little nephew in 
America, but by a subsequent modification the work assumed its present form of sci- 
entific talks with boys and girls." — Fro?n the Pre/ace. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



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